Harlem Globetrotters' antics delight fans
JAKARTA (JP): Basketball refers to far more than just the big National Basketball Association (NBA) stars, like the Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan, Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal or Houston Rockets' Hakeem Olajuwon.
All real basketball fans are familiar with the name of the Harlem Globetrotters -- the team whose cartoon was broadcast on Indonesian TV many years ago.
Jakartans had the opportunity to witness firsthand the special style of the "Magicians of Basketball" when the team played to a capacity crowd in the Jakarta Convention Center Plenary Hall on Saturday and Sunday night.
The Harlem Globetrotters, founded in 1926 by Abe Saperstein, fulfilled the promise made last week that the team would emulate the style of the famous boxer, Muhammad Ali, to "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee". The team pleased 4,000 spectators, with players' antics prompting regular ripples of laughter.
The Globetrotters started the fun with their traditional 30- minute Magic Circle warm-up, which was accompanied by the song Sweet Georgia Brown. They also showed off their slam-dunks, the basketball maneuver which the team had popularized decades before.
The 10 players -- Michael "Wild Thing" Wilson, Wun "The Shot" Versher, James "Jumbo" Bacon, Paul "Showtime" Gaffney, Daron Jenkins, Curley "Boo" Johnson, Townsend Orr, Spencer "The Doctor" Rhynes, Clyde "The Glide" Sinclair and Michael St Julien -- then made a circle and each span the ball in turn.
Communication between the players and spectators was a key to capturing the audience's complete attention.
Gaffney, the team's forward, demonstrated how he earned his nickname, Showtime. The 28-year-old "Clown Prince of Basketball" amazed the audience, especially the children.
The crowd enjoyed his attempts to provoke the referees, Larry Burton and Jimi Polous, by making fun of them behind their backs.
Another Globetrotters' star, Johnson, dubbed the Fastest Dribbler, managed to dribble while sitting, sliding and stooping.
The duet impressed the audience, who paid Rp 30,000 (US$12.7) to attend the show which was organized by the IMG and sponsored by Enervon-C and the commercial RCTI TV channel.
Unfortunately, Gaffney failed to shoot the ball using a pitcher movement. Despite multiple attempts, he was unable to execute the trick.
"Everybody misses shots sometimes. We can't make every shot but we're so glad Showtime was very good. Hopefully tomorrow he'll make more shots. It could have been better if he'd made those shots," coach Charles Tex Harrison, who visited Indonesia as a player about 30 years ago, said after Saturday's show.
Although most spectators were satisfied with the show, a few were disappointed.
"It's boring. The attraction does not hold any surprises for me," said Tuti Gunawan, the national women's team defense player.
Her comment was possibly the expression of the nation's basketball aspirations. How long will we watch the skills of foreign players without being able to perform to the same standard ourselves?
Maybe our problems stem from a generation which is interested in basketball because it wants to look like the Globetrotters or the NBA players without paying attention to technical skills.
"Clothes come first, success may come later", may be what this generation has in mind.
While in Indonesia, the Globetrotters, whose new animated cartoon will air on the TNT Cartoon Network, have also visited 12 orphanages and several high schools for coaching clinics. (yan)