Whether Mandrake the Magician knew about Stephen Curry in a double dribble tandem with his coach, Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors, the NBA Houdini (s), he knew being a father of a newborn daughter, he had to show Mandrake his own magic ,leading Steve Kerr’s team to those heights of a pro basketball dynasty.
II
“Shades of the Bay area” quoteth Mandrake the Magician”…. the University of San Francisco and that duo of K.C. Jones and the 6 foot nine inch center Bill Russell made “hoi poloi” withRed Auerbach’s Boston Celtics…on their parquet floor musical weave into Eternity and lore, folklore.……the stuff that legends are made. Wherever the cognoscenti ramp up basketball dreamers into NCAA college and NBA continuity.
III
As reality had it, Auerbach’s parents owned a delicatesn andlater a dry cleaning store, Brooklyn’s Williamsburg.
A cast of Bill Sharman, Sam Jones, Tommy Heinsohn from the corners, John Havlicek off the bench, Holy Cross’s Bob Cousyorchestrating the weave, bringing the pumpkin down, on a Ruasell rebound and pass..
Frank Ramsey and number six man Don Nelson rounded out the defensive rebounds. converting into a outlet pass or fast break, that broke the Harry Houdini Mandrake the Magician spoof of smoke, wide open. Into a fantastic metamorphosis….the time clock tickng, the player’s own cardiac beats boom booming ..
IV
But on television’s ABC network, Stephen Curry the Mandrake, orchestrated his dribbling, his two handed magic…switching hands, setting up his tee vee machinations, caught up in the magic of Curry’s new persona as a baby faced demon Richard Widmark...his most viable “swish”
V
The Magician’s grin that breaks the defensive player’s back; the screen by a teammate to get into his three point range from “downtown “.
A consummate diagnostic magician who puts the defenders into his spell…still a kid no one would suspect, abounded from the school playground….
“Elementary, my dear Mandrake.”
VI
Modest Houdini demonstrated his guile for sandwiching two basketballs, as Magician’s
Convening the Continent’s audience to a dribbling repartee that takes one’s breathe away.
Like his father, a Cro Magnom magician, he taunts the opponent into anxiety…shoot? Pass? Drive? Shield?.Time out, construct a play?
VII
Steve Kerr, the other twin soul of the Houdini- Mandrake the Magician duo …his Pacific Palisades High School gym.. owneagle eyed persona at Palisades High , his father an administrator (President)_ at American University in Beirut, Lebanon, gunned down.
Lost to the Kerr’s Physical Education (football and track coach, Valley College, Van Nuys, Ca), by a assassin, the son going tothe University of Arizona for his own Houdini evolution.
Into Mozart’s basketball heaven….the Magic Flute. Of dribbling disguise ‘s and switching keys, masked by schoolyard’s eternaldeception
VIII
Steve Kerr ‘s own Houdini brand of magic was adopted by the Chicago Bulls franchise and coach Phil Jackson, his alter ego ,Tex Winter inventing the triangle stratagem for the duo of Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen.
Kerr masterminding his three point shot heard around the Bulls offices. And the practice court in Lake Forest, Illinois.
IX
In those interludes of basketball dreams , Steve Kerr found his way back to Northern California and the Golden StateWarriors..Mimic-ing his own coaches…high school, college, NBA teams.
Phil Jackson, a long time number 6 man on the Knick bench, was elevated to the head honcho’s role,(director, operations) at the Madison Square Garden magical Harry Houdini basketball heaven..
“Steve come to the Big Apple” pleaded his vintage Knick and Chicago Bull magician.
X
But Steve Kerr in his own Harry Houdini magic, knew he had Stephen Curry…declining the offer to stay with the Warriors.
Between Mandrake the Magician and Harry Houdini, the Kerr-Curry magic is but a metamorphosis, an incarnation of a transfusion of coaching nebula between UCLA ‘s Wilbur Johnscoach, and his successor John Wooden..
Only one of four Hall of Fame players, who became a Hall of Fame coach.
XI
May the Ker Curry twin soul tandem renew its all court magic in the same breath as the pioneers that made the schoolyard mimicry, a foretaste of what life on the planet’s own playground, could be and become.
September 24, 2o015. The City that never sleeps.
