Yahoo Sports has become a surprisingly good source over the last couple years, but this article might be their best offering yet. It covers Stephen Jackson's "changed man" status now that he is a captain of the underachieving Warriors, who the Celtics take on at home tonight. Jackson was suspended for the beginning of the season for the "strip club fracas" incident, and now he's just starting to get into a groove.
These Warriors had a remarkable run late last season, and they're trying desperately to recapture it at 2-6. For Jackson, it starts with letting go of so many old demons and avoiding old traps. He knows people want to call him a thug, and he knows those who've grown to know him through the years insist that his essence defies all those simple stereotypes.
"Stereotyping is so easy these days," Jackson argued on Monday. "If people know anything about tattoos and the bible, the bible says that the body stays in the dirt and your soul goes to heaven. So our body is just a shell. So if people know anything, they'll know that tattoos are just art."
Fair point. But what would heaven be if we couldn't have our sweet-ass tattoos up there?
Someday, Stephen Jackson wishes that people would see him as an American success story, and maybe that's still out there with the Warriors now. Rest assured, it wasn't for his public image that he had his newest tattoo carved into his chest this summer, but his own peace of mind. Beneath the ‘C' on his uniform, there are two praying hands holding a gun near a church window.
To Jackson, this was his past and future meeting in the middle of his body.
"It wasn't to bust balls, but it was a tattoo for me," he said. "I swore to myself that I'll never be in an incident again. I was just praying to God that I'll never have to use a gun again. It's just something that I want to help me when I want to think about where I came from, and where I am now. I'll just have to look at that tattoo and remember to keep a level head."
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you need a tattoo on your chest of two praying hands holding a gun in a church to keep yourself from shooting a gun into the air at a strip club and almost running over a one-armed man, you aren't exactly poised for success. Which leads us to the unusual conclusion of an otherwise outstanding article-
After all, the Warriors' old white guy sees beyond the tats and cornrows and bad history, and Don Nelson believes in Jackson. He's a captain now. This is his team, his time. Stephen Jackson can't screw it up again.
Ooookay!
Anyway, the Celtics play the Warriors tonight, who are a helluva lot better than their 3-6 record suggests. Here are the game keys:
1) Get back to moving the ball. The C's have looked pretty bad the last couple games as Jesus and P2 have been taking some weird shots early in the shot clock. Let's keep that ball moving, boys.
2) Protect the perimeter. Patrick "Popcorn" O'Bryant and Andre "Superglue Hair" Biedrins are not exactly scoring sensations. However, the Warriors can heat it up outside, so the Celtics should be playing aggressively on the perimeter and funneling the Warriors inside to either get slapped around by Perk and KG or dump the ball to those jokers playing the post for botched layups.
3) Play the right players at the right time. Not a tall order, but coaching comes about as easily to Doc as quantum physics comes to Stephon Marbury.
PREDICTION: The scoring gets out of hand, but the Celtics pull out a 123-120 victory. Big Baby and Scalabrine celebrate by decimating the Northeast's turkey population.Source URL: http://ledger-heath.blogspot.com/2007/11/captain-jackson-is-changed-man-has.html
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