White Lies

Why is this blog called White Lies? My teammates probably know the origin of the name already, but on the surface, I can see how it would sound like a stupid name for a credible blog. Answers.com's definition of a "white lie" is "an often trivial, diplomatic, or well-intentioned truth". While it isn't my intention to make this blog diplomatic, and I definitely don't want you to think it's trivial, I'd like to think I'm publishing bits of "well-intentioned truth" in my posts, so maybe Answers.com's definition could apply. A white lie is generally thought of as a fabrication, or perhaps a fib, that avoids offending the person with whom you are speaking.

This blog, however, was named after a scene from a street ball-type highlight video called "Ball Above All". As a sidebar, in our locker room back at Cornell, a well-endowed, technologically advanced Ivy-League school, our entertainment system consists of an old TV (that you can't actually watch television on), a Nintendo 64, and a VCR (which has since been broken). The collection of VHS tapes we have is impressive, but one of our favorites is an imitator of those AND 1 mixtape videos that were so popular back in elementary school called "Ball Above All". It shows your typical fancy basketball highlights: behind the back passes, ankle breaking crossovers, windmills, facials, 360s, you name it. Most of the players featured are current NBA or street ball players when they were still in high school embarrassing unlucky 5-6 Jewish kids that that had no business playing on the same court. It also features a section called "Fresh Ink" where D-list NBA players tell the thrilling tales of when they spent part of their first NBA paycheck on a favorite tattoo and what the artwork symbolizes..."I wanted to get a dinosaur from Jurassic Park after I got drafted by the Raptors, but they couldn't do that, so I just got the Raptors logo dribbling a basketball..." You get the idea.

To make a long and entertaining story short, the narrator of this film is none other than Sinbad...yeah that Sinbad. The "Jingle All the Way", "Houseguest" Sinbad. Basically, Sinbad and his friends are shooting the breeze in a local barber shop talking hoops...sounds kind of fun. Each of their conversations serves as the lead in to a series of highlights. Finally, they start talking about white guys. I got completely tricked the first time I watched this section of the movie, which they call "White Lies". No shame in that. It's normal to think, "Oh man this is awesome, they're going to show some white guys with hops...Brent Barry, Tom Chambers, Birdman!!!!!". Nah. The section is completely devoted to showing white guys doing what white guys do. "Fundamental crossover, gains a step on the defender, uses the backboard effectively for a nifty reverse layup! He's on a fastbreak with one man to beat, is he going to go hard to the rack? No he pulls up for jumpshot from downtown!"

They toss in a few dunks here and there but they kind of remind me of funny looking dunks I might do. Not your typical AND 1 material. Not even a Professor or Jason "White Chocolate" Williams point guard who has an expert handle.

This blog is not intended to talk all about the white basketball player (though at appropriate times I might). I simply named the blog after this movie scene to honor unsung heroes like Jeff Hornacek the face-wiper, Greg Ostertag, Adam Keefe (is it weird that most of these guys played for the Jazz?) and Adam "more people should cry" Morrison. Take it away Adam...