The Amazing Adventures of Curry and Klay

    They splashed onto the scene, already legends as the best shooting backcourt the NBA had ever seen. It was the early 2010s, when everyone thought you still needed a strong frontcourt to win a championship. But the Golden State Warriors changed that narrative. Not only were they small and could score prolifically, but they played defense. At their peak, they had the best regular season in NBA history, only to watch it crumble to LeBron James's Cavs in 2016, in what is the best NBA Finals I have witnessed. Then they acquired Kevin Durant in the offseason to become one of the best teams of all time. They were unbeatable. I don't even think my '08 Celtics could beat them. 
    Curry was underrated compared to Durant, while Klay was underrated compared to Curry. When Klay and Durant got injured in the 2019 finals, things went downhill fast. They became one of the worst teams in the league overnight. Yet they had won a title in 2015 without Durant, which made me believe that the real lynch pin was the hardly recognized Klay Thompson, whose all around game is the best of any shooting guard in this era. Klay spreads the floor for Curry to do his magic on offense. Without him, the offense contracts the same way the Celtics did without Ray Allen. Unlike Allen- another of my favorite shooting guards- Klay is an elite defender. He has the savviest intuition for what a player will do, so as he isn't necessarily the quickest or most talented defender, he makes up for it in reading the defense. 
    Durant's departure and Klay's injuries saw the Warriors reach a surprising low as they went to the bottom of the league. Surprising to most. When Klay came back this year, the Warriors were suddenly winning again. No one thought they'd make it to the finals, much less win it all again. He didn't even necessarily play well; we all saw what his partner in crime splash brother Curry did. It's simply his presence that makes the Warriors better, on both sides of the court. That is why nobody sees the divine element that makes the Warriors so great- that elusive element of magic that Curry and Klay's chemistry has conjured over the years, even when they aren't 100% healthy. And that is the scariest thing for the league to take away from this finals: they weren't even at full strength.

The Great Wall of Los Angeles

Inspired by Judith Baca.  

 

Blood of the ancients, irrigating the land,

Red becomes blue, blue becomes green,

Prisons of labor for the suburban kings,

Tears become blood, blood becomes oil,

Sunburnt history the indigenous aurora

Implants sparkles on the fertility goddess,

Glossy for Hollywood, a shotgun aimed,

Cementing her to the ground for the feed.

They feast on her history, the exploited lands,

Her sets tilled to ash by the reel,

Feeling cold, getting old, buried under the theater,

Bloodletting for the well, strapped in showbiz,

Heart still open, rising for home,

An appendage earthquake, then several,

Then the Earth separates, San Andreas breaches,

Her hair, her western eyes of agave

Breaking through the wall, exploding over the city,

Rising above the medicated audience,

Bishop's disbelief, explorer's inertia, investor's dismay,

From her mighty wrist flow the redemptive ghosts,

Raising murals to conquer and devour,

The wounds clotting, the water returning.

Mountain Alchemy

Soft day, still water,

Spontaneously visited, full of wonder,

The mountains called, a lake answered,

One not visited since my youth rendered,

Balancing the fulcrum returning to present,

Bavarian gems embroidering the essence,

Silky-sweet snow-capped ridges

Abloom in his eyes, that innocent richness,

Brandishing nature with eager ecstasy

To scale them, the mighty peaks of fantasy.

Her peace is woven by trees on the shore,

Cloudless nursery the infant adores,

Rural desolation, a formula for retreat,

Pinecones in the sand piles at their feet,

A chipmunk retreating on logs he travailed

To stake a claim on the beach we prevailed.

If freedom is overrated, I'd rather not know why,

Just play me the music of mountains so high,

Allow us to follow the river revived,

See where it leads through the valley to find

New riches that glint by natural alchemy,

Solar reactions on water and chassis,

Turning a kaleidoscope that reaches Montana,

Forging of heaven that materialized arcana.