The Side Part: Ish
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Paul Thomas Anderson, the now salt and peppered, shawl collar cardigan wearing husband of Maya Rudolph that brought you Boogie Nights, Magnolia and There Will Be Blood, among others, just dropped a new movie, Inherent Vice. Its wide release was yesterday. Vice is an adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow, Crying of Lot 49) novel — 1970, LA, innocence lost, smoking weed by the beach, private eye, missing ex-girlfriend, Country Joe & The Fish — of the same name. Characters in Pynchon novels have names. And these are not some boring non-names like Tyler or John or Frank or Carol.
These are exciting names. Tremendous and electric ones. Ones in bright blue neon lights with, like, purple outline, and these name are just so bright and so sharp that the sign, it just blows up, because the names are just so powerful. Pierce Inverarity. Oedipa Mass. Tyrone Slothrop. Reg Despard. Gabriel Ice. Those first couple sound like mid-level luxury cars. The last three sound like they should always be wearing velvet capes. I swear basketball is coming soon.
Unrelated, Gravity’s Rainbow has just about the best first sentence a novel has ever had.
A screaming comes across the sky.
Would like a t-shirt with Westbrook on it and that text below it.
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The first thing I thought when the Woj Bomb was let loose on the NBA world was, and this a direct quote, “WHAAAAT?” The second thing I thought was, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Man, they must know something I don’t know about Ish Smith, like that he has grown eight inches and is now a nuclear version of Magic Johnson.” Then I thought about how the next thing I’m required to name I will name Ish because that is a very cool name. Feels like Pynchon should’ve made it up. Something like Ish Tomtree. Ish Magenta. Ish Jollydrapes.
Course, this was prior to the correction that Reggie Jackson wasn’t included in the trade. Reggie has turned so strange. It’s difficult to ever just be overjoyed about him. Hamm wrote wonderfully on that earlier this week. That Memphis game last year may be the only time he’s ever made me feel something. But I do recognize, as backup point guards go — Reg can really play, at times — the Thunder could a lot worse. A lot worse being Ish Basstruck. But Reggie remains, for now. He’s looking like he lost something he loved just about all the time, and the person who has it is holding it up in front of him, just out of reach, but he’s around. He’ll wave off Durant again sometime soon.
After a couple days of thought, I don’t really know what to think about the Waiters deal. One game does not a trade make or break, so we’ll treat the 1 for 9 performance last night as a small sample size and just skip right on to speculation. It’s one of those trades that comes with several fat ifs that will decide whether it winds up being a steal or not. If he buys in. If he’s actually okay coming off the bench. If he doesn’t grow a beard and change his name to James. Ultimately, though, it’s Lance Thomas — a guy that just barely got invited to camp — and a top 18 protected pick for a guy who was not long ago the number four overall pick in the draft, and who is still on his rookie deal. For all intents and purposes, that’s a good trade. Dion can pour it in. I know that’s a glorified pick up game, but I don’t much care. Dion can get and deliver buckets, when feeling it. There’s typically a place for guys like that, so long as they’re not head cases. Forget I said that.
What I really want to talk about, though, is that this trade is fun. It’s a party, a real good time. For an organization that seemingly prides itself on being publicly boring, this is decidedly un-boring, which isn’t really a word. This is a move that comes with Black Cats and sparklers and Fourth of July neighborhood barbecues turned into baseball games with Ray Charles railing on while fireworks pop off above you.
This is trying something, which is, I think, what fans have been desperate for from the front office at prior trade deadlines, what with those trade exceptions of varying values coming and going with nothing of consequence coming in return. And again, really the lone casualty in all this is Lance Thomas who — and I really grew to love Lance — doesn’t exactly strike any level of fear into anybody. I mean, he posed for this picture. Dion is a new piece, talent they’re banking on. Maybe he soars now, maybe he doesn’t, but it was absolutely worth the shot.
