January 14, 2009

Viva Dikembe





Quote of the week (or unspecified time period until I post another quote), from Dikembe Mutombo, speaking
to the Houston Chronicle of Yao Ming's tendency to draw charges:
“I’m very critical,” Mutombo said. “Those are bull. I told him that. He’s too tall to be taking charges. He needs to learn to play defense without using his chest. You don’t block a shot with you chest. You block it with your hands. The man who taught me the game, John Thompson, never said that a 7-footer should take a charge, even in a basketball 1-on-1. There’s no rule or writing in the books that you should take a charge. They teach you how to rebound and block shots. So I’m going to work on that. Maybe Yao is listening to Shane [Battier]. Maybe he wants to be a guard or something. Man, I’ve got a lot of things to work on. Maybe he’s planning to lead the league charges. So I have to stop him. I have to teach him to lead the league in blocked shots, not charges.”
Bravo, Dikembe. Charges are indeed bull. Actually, only fake ones are bull. But it seems like pretty much 90 percent of charges are flops these days.

YOU DON'T BLOCK A SHOT WITH YOU CHEST. YOU BLOCK IT WITH YOUR HANDS.

Words to live by.

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