a universal principle of sport and art?
Here's a video that perfectly expresses why people who like the Spurs like the Spurs. The main thing is that they play basketball: no hotdogging, no showoffy grandstanding — the American cult of the individual, elsewhere threatening to capsize sports, is replaced here by the American values of teamwork and patience.
At one point, a person says watching the Spurs is "like listening to Mozart." I think the person meant it in the sense of a gentle, perfectly working machine that's endlessly pleasing. But there's something more there. It's like listening to Mozart because in fact Mozart often withholds the resolution to a phrase, and then withholds it again, then again, then again, and then boom! it lands. Just watch play after play here, where, instead of just going for a basket, the player passes it, then instead of going for a basket, that player passes. Pass after pass after pass, until the shot is inevitable. What makes for great music makes for great basketball as well.
At one point, a person says watching the Spurs is "like listening to Mozart." I think the person meant it in the sense of a gentle, perfectly working machine that's endlessly pleasing. But there's something more there. It's like listening to Mozart because in fact Mozart often withholds the resolution to a phrase, and then withholds it again, then again, then again, and then boom! it lands. Just watch play after play here, where, instead of just going for a basket, the player passes it, then instead of going for a basket, that player passes. Pass after pass after pass, until the shot is inevitable. What makes for great music makes for great basketball as well.
Comments