Bucs’ Antonio Brown: From troubles to a place in the Super Bowl

By Art Spander

It’s all about production in sports.

There are exceptions, individuals or organizations with a genuine concern about civility and morality. Yet the issue rarely is what the athlete has done away from the field — his troubles in society — but what he is able to do on the field.

There was a wonderfully skilled receiver on the Oakland Raiders in the late 1960s, Warren Wells, who could catch anything. Unfortunately the law caught up with him, and he was arrested just before a huge game in Oakland.

For Raiders owner Al Davis — “Just win, baby” — the problem was less why Wells had been jailed than it was getting him back in the lineup for that Sunday.

It is ironic that receiver Antonio Brown, scheduled to play for Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV on Sunday, once was also with the Raiders, if very briefly, a few days in the summer of 2019.

Then he was with New England. Then he was suspended eight weeks for multiple violations of the NFL’s personal conduct policy (burglary and sexual misconduct).

Then in October 2020, partly on the recommendation of Tom Brady, who for a few days was a teammate on the Patriots, Brown was signed by the Buccaneers and now is to play in the most important game of the year.

Hey, it never hurts a quarterback to have another guy who can run routes. Besides, as you’ve heard before, everyone deserves a second chance. Or for Brown is it a third or fourth one?

Brown was great with the Steelers for several years. He was unable to reach an agreement for a new contract, and everything turned nasty, not the least of which was Brown’s disposition.

Which didn’t affect the way Brady judged him.

“Certainly I’m happy for Antonio to get an opportunity to resume his career,” Brady said in a Westwood One radio interview, Oct. 26, 2020, when Brown joined the quarterback on the Bucs. “He’s put a lot of time and energy into working on a lot of things in his life.”

Including the restraints placed on him by the NFL. Brown is on probation for two years, must undergo a psychological evaluation, provide 100 hours of community service and attend an anger management course.

In a Super Bowl interview session via Zoom on Wednesday, Brown was asked about the legal woes, which also included being sued for hurling furniture off a 14th-floor balcony and nearly striking a 22-month-old and grandfather walking below. His answer was really no answer at all.

“I’m just extremely grateful to be here,” said Brown, evoking memories of Marshawn Lynch (“I’m only here so I won’t get fined”) before Super Bowl XLIX in 2015.

Lynch was repetitive, offering the line repeatedly for five minutes. Brown was evasive.

“It’s a blessing to be here,” said Brown. “Super grateful. I’d be doing a disservice if I talked about things that are not the focus of the game.”

Sort of a variation on a theme by Brady’s former boss at New England, Bill Belichick, who following a rare loss talked only about the next game on the Patriots’ schedule. “On to Cincinnati,” was the memorable Belichick observation.

For Brown, it’s on to a world where the points on the scoreboard are almost all that matters, to him and those around him.

“I’ve been through some things, but that’s life,” Brown said. “We all have a story. We all have to allow ourselves to grow for the betterment of ourselves. I’m just grateful for the journey.

“I want my legacy to be a guy that was persistent, a guy that never gave up, no matter the odds, no matter the hate.”

Persistence counts. Production counts more. As we were reminded by the treatment of Warren Wells. And Antonio Brown.

Andy Reid: No Geritol or yelling, just wins

By Art Spander

Of course they’re older — with one exception, Sean McVay. The reason these guys are coaches is they have gained experience, in football or life. As you’ve heard, age is only a number, an insignificant one when compared to another number, wins.

How the conversation reached the point is hard to say, but apparently in his Tuesday presser, Zoomed for players and media separated by pandemic protocol, Kansas City’s Andy Reid was asked his age, an implication that he didn’t know how to deal with a new generation.

Reid is a mere 62 — the other coach in Sunday’s Super Bowl LV, Tampa Bay’s Bruce Arians, is 65 — and he joked that he and his staff are “no Geritol crew.”

If the reference is dated — Geritol was a mineral supplement pulled off the market maybe 30 years ago when the FDA denied the claim it cured “tired blood” — Reid is not dated.

As his 25-year-old quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, pointed out, Reid is young enough.

Reid also is part of the renowned Bill Walsh coaching tree, men who as assistants were fortunate enough to have a connection with the individual who perfected the West Coast Offense and, in turn, helped the 49ers win five Super Bowls.

Each became an NFL head coach, and now four, George Seifert, Jon Gruden, Mike Holmgren and last year Reid had their own Super Bowl victories.

West Coast (capitals) and for Seifert, Holmgren and Reid, California guys, west coast, lower case.

Reid grew up in Los Angeles, not far from Griffith Park. There was a fine story by Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times the other day of Reid, your typical offensive lineman, and his pals from Marshall High cramming into a VW bug and hitting the town — but not until they made their hits in prep games.

Reid moved on to Brigham Young, where in 1988, after six years as Niners quarterback coach, Holmgren had become the Cougars’ offensive coordinator. When Holmgren took over as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, he brought in his group.

The tree bloomed once more. According to the Kansas City Chiefs’ web site, in 1992 the Packers, under Holmgren, had five future NFL head coaches on the staff: Reid, Gruden, Steve Mariucci, Dick Jauron and Ray Rhodes.

They were sharp and aggressive, and intent on reaching the sky.

Just as years earlier, in the 1960s, were Walsh, Dick Vermeil and Jim Mora Sr., on staff at Stanford. They would stay after practice drawing plays on what then was a blackboard, trying to outfox each other. ”Last man with the chalk wins,” was the observation.

Which sounds very much like what you’d hear about Holmgren’s Packers assistants. “It was an exciting group of young talented coaches,” Gruden told the Chiefs web site.

“I love football and had a lot to prove. Andy (Reid) also had a lot of love for the game and a lot to prove, too. It was all so exciting being in the NFL at a young age, being with Mike Holmgren and a having a chance to show we belonged.”

As Walsh, Vermeil and Mora did some 40 years earlier, Reid and his colleagues challenged each other with concepts and plays, “intrasquad” stuff you might call it, ideas that in time would become functional.

“In our staff meetings,” said Holmgren, “you could throw out ideas on a table and if it was a good idea I’d stick it in the game plan. What I didn’t realize is they kept track of that. They’d go back and give a hard time to each other about that.”

It was all in the learning, the experience, as was the Philadelphia defeat when Reid was the Eagles’ head coach in the 2005 Super Bowl. A hard time? That’s all they ever give losers in Philly.

But he went to the Chiefs in 2013, and the Chiefs got their first Super Bowl win in a half century. He has the goods. He’s always had the perspective.

“We all want to be treated a certain way. If not, I know how I like to be treated,” he said. “That’s (what) tells me what I need to do to get better at what I’m trying to get accomplished. You don’t necessarily have to yell and scream at me to get me to do something better. I kind of go about it that way, going to treat people the way I want to be treated.

“We’re here as teachers, and that’s what I do. That’s how I look at myself is a teacher — of, in my case, men. Whether it’s on the field or off the field, if I can give them any experience to become better players, husbands, fathers, that’s what I do.”

He’s done it beautifully — and successfully.

As Goff learned, they love you — until they don’t

By Art Spander

This is the way it is in pro sports: They love you — until they don’t. And that’s management, the people in control. Sometimes the fans never love you. No matter what you accomplish.

The linking of Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams was perfect. Until, alas, it wasn’t.

He was born and raised in California; played quarterback at Cal so effectively the Los Angeles Rams made him the overall No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft; helped lead the Rams to the Super Bowl in his second season.

A golden boy from and in the Golden State.

Then, whup, traded to the Detroit Lions. For another quarterback, Matthew Stafford, also an overall No. 1 pick. Well, maybe “whup” isn’t quite accurate.

As of a few days ago when the Rams failed to offer anything more than unqualified support — “He is our quarterback right now” was the cryptic comment from L.A. coach Sean McVay after the Rams’ playoff loss two weeks ago — change was a possibility.

The hero has become a bum. The golden boy has been tarnished. At 26, Jared Goff was dispatched. Thanks for dropping by, and good luck on that team that never has any luck — real or Andrew Luck.    

He’s the Stanford quarterback also selected No. 1 overall, in 2012, who after injuries retired before the 2019 season. And is rumored to be coming back.

Those QBs are so valuable. You don’t win only with a quarterback. You need a defense, receivers, running backs, a kicker. But rarely do you win without a quarterback. He is the leader, the one who — as we’ve been taught — handles the ball on every play.

Norv Turner, who has coached several teams, including the Chargers, said during a season a great quarterback will win a couple of games that, without him, you would have lost.

Then again, if Stafford is the answer, the savior, someone the Rams preferred over the man they had, Goff, why didn’t the Detroit Lions ever win a playoff game in Stafford’s 12 seasons?

This is the start of Super Bowl week, and unquestionably the teams who made it, Tampa Bay and Kansas City, have brilliant quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes of K.C. arguably the best now playing, and Tom Brady, arguably the best of all time.

Such a quest to find somebody of quality, if not another Mahomes or Brady. Or Joe Montana. Or John Elway. Or Terry Bradshaw. Someone to win those couple of games along the way you would have lost.

The 49ers have the guy who once was Brady’s backup at New England, Jimmy Garoppolo. He helped direct the Niners to the Super Bowl in 2019. As with Goff when the Rams got there, Garoppolo was on the team that didn’t win.

The 49ers are looking for someone else, according to the rumors. Stafford was one of their preferences. Now he’s joined one of their division opponents.

What happens to Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, as Goff a Cal alum, who describes his future as a “beautiful mystery,” is, well, beautifully mysterious.

Everybody except K.C. and Tampa Bay (and of course the Rams and Lions) wants Houston’s Deshaun Watson, who wants out of Houston — but according to the Texans will remain.

So much instability. So much uncertainty.

A year and a half ago, the Rams signed Goff to a four-year $134 million contract extension. He was their quarterback. He’s now the Lions’ quarterback.

Goff incurred a broken thumb in the last game of the 2020 season. Yet it was broken trust by McVay and the Rams’ front office that cost the quarterback his job.

Along the way the decision was made, quoting that nefarious phrase bosses often employ, to go in a new direction.

How far the Rams — and Lions — will go after trading their franchise quarterback for a franchise quarterback should create as many questions as answers.

Where Brady goes, championships follow

By Art Spander

It isn’t only Tom Brady. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have an excellent defense — doesn’t every great team? — and fine receivers and running backs. But so much is Tom Brady. Where he goes, championships follow.

John Brodie, who quarterbacked the 49ers when Brady’s father, Tom Sr., came to be a fan, once told me you can’t blame an individual for failure in a team sport. You can, however, credit him for success.

Some people are winners. Some are not. Brady is a winner. Thus, so are the Tampa Bay Bucs, as was Brady’s former team, the New England Patriots, the one which for a varying set of reasons, Brady’s age, a need to rebuild, chose not to re-sign him after 20 seasons.

Which allowed the Bucs to do that, and in turn after a Sunday in Green Bay, when Brady threw three passes for touchdowns and numerous others to get control and keep it, underdog Tampa Bay defeated the Packers, 31- 26, for the NFC Championship.

For the 10th time, Brady will be playing in a Super Bowl, this one LV — 55 in the vulgate. And through fortune more than preparation, the game will be in Tampa, making the Bucs the first team in a half century to play the game at their home stadium.

He, or more correctly his team, the Patriots, has won six times previously.

Not bad for the kid from Serra High in San Mateo (from which Barry Bonds also graduated), who went to Michigan because no West Coast university was particularly interested and then wasn’t selected in the draft until the sixth round. Too slow was the judgment.

But Brady had an arm and a presence. He’s never had to run the 50, only run a football team.

This one season he ran the Bucs effectively, making us wonder what would have happened if he stayed with the Patriots, or gone to the team he cheered as a youth, the 49ers — who relied on Brady’s former backup in New England, Jimmy Garoppolo.

We’ll never know. What the Bucs know is, as they hoped, Brady provided the leadership and performance that made a difference in the locker room as much as on the field.

“I was excited when I saw on television that we signed him,” said Shaquil Barrett, the linebacker who on Sunday made others excited by combining with Jason Pierre-Paul for five sacks, speaking to Fox TV.

“You know what he can do. He treats everyone the same.”

Brady knows the drill. With all the attention over the years, all the accolades, he is almost too cool in interviews, offering a “been there, done that,” response — which you suppose is to be expected from someone who had his own weekly radio show in Boston and is married to a supermodel.

“It’s great to get another road win,” said Brady, “and now we got a home game.”

That will be in two weeks against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and their own heroic (but younger) QB. At 25, Patrick Mahomes is 18 years younger than Brady and also is a Super Bowl MVP.

Quarterbacks are a necessity to win titles. Brady has understood this for years. Tom was wasn’t quite 5 when he was taken by his dad in January 1982 to “The Catch” game at Candlestick Park.

That’s the one where Joe Montana passed to Dwight Clark, lifting the 49ers to their first Super Bowl.

A long time, from virtual childhood to actual greatness. Brady perhaps never could have imagined he would return again and again to the Super Bowl, especially this season when so much changed.

Except his brilliance.

How Hank Aaron handled the pitches — and the situation

By Art Spander

Hank Aaron handled everything better than most of us — better than the commissioner of baseball, Bowie Kuhn; better than the sports columnist of the New York Daily News, Dick Young; better then a certain journalist from the San Francisco Chronicle, me.

We had our reasons, unusual as they might have been.

It was the opening of the 1974 major league season. Aaron had finished 1973 with 713 career home runs, one fewer than Babe Ruth’s cherished total. It was inevitable that Aaron would first tie the record, then break it. History would be his, and ours.

The years flash past, our heroes age and leave us too soon. Aaron died Friday. He was 86. “Hammerin’ Hank.” An athlete of brilliance, an individual of dignity. They tell us that you learn most about a person with how he or she deals with adversity.

Those had been a difficult few months for Aaron, the winter of ’73. He was surrounded by attention. And odium.

Baseball still was the national pastime, in fact as much as in fiction. Babe Ruth was the game’s singular legend. Perhaps no less important in a changing society, he was white.

Aaron was African-American, and some didn’t want him toppling Ruth’s record. There also were those, who as now, simply were bigots. Aaron received hate mail, threats on his life. He was shaken but resolute.

Tradition, now revised, dictated that every season would begin in Cincinnati. Writers and broadcasters — we were yet to be called media — descended on the city. So did nature.

On Friday, April 3, a day before the opening game, a tornado struck southern Ohio. I hid under a bed in the hotel. Fifty miles away in Xenia, buildings were destroyed, fatalities recorded.

Aaron played for the Braves, first in Boston, then in Milwaukee, finally in Atlanta. Braves management wanted him kept out of the lineup until the team came home, the next week.

But Kuhn, the commissioner, decreed Hank must appear in at least two of the three games at Cincinnati. Dick Young, the New York columnist who had come to cover Aaron, wanted him to play all three games and in print ripped Kuhn, the commissioner.

So many subplots. So much tension. So little drama.  One pitch, one swing and Aaron drove a fast ball from Jack Billingham of the Reds into the left field seats of Riverfront Stadium.

The press box was enclosed — we used to joke it was “hermetically sealed“ — the setting surreal. No crack of the bat but a ball silently sailing out of the park and into our minds.

In time, on cue. Hank would not depart unfulfilled. Either would we dozens of journalists, some who came from as far as Europe.

Aaron played only one of the next two games in Cincy, and so he, the Braves and the press entourage went on to Atlanta, where it would be Monday night baseball, the Braves against the Dodgers.  

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, as Riverfront, was a multi-sport complex, home also to the NFL’s Falcons. Unlike hulking Riverfront in Cincinnati, a fortress, the stadium in Atlanta was more accepting — the press box open — and home run-friendly.

The outfield fence was chain link, like that at a local playground, and the relievers sat behind it in utilitarian bullpens.

It was just after 9 o’clock that Monday night, April 7, when the Dodgers’ Al Downing, who was always called “that little lefty,” pitched to Aaron. Darrell Evans was on first, and Downing was looking for a double play, What all of us looked at was a two-run shot that sent Aaron ahead of the Babe.

The bullpen guys had decided among themselves where to watch the game if not warming up. Tom House caught the ball that set the mark. While House grabbed his bit of history, two teenagers jumped from the stands to join Aaron circling the bases.

Security was different then. The post-game scene was the same, reporters jammed into the clubhouse seeking Aaron while Milo Hamilton, the Atlanta TV announcer, tried restoring a semblance of order.

The next morning, several of us drove the 150 miles down I-70 to Augusta, where the Masters would be played; the defending champion was Tommy Aaron.

You couldn’t have scripted it any better.

To Curry, ‘kind of like a blast from the past’

By Art Spander

Steph Curry hit this one. Not with a jumper, with a comment, about a victory that that was as emotional as it was unlikely. “It was,” said Curry, “kind of like a blast from the past.”

From the distant past, from the Warriors’ championship seasons, five, six years ago, when Golden State was Golden and no deficit seemed impossible to overcome — which Monday night against the Lakers a deficit seemed to be but wasn’t.

You know the NBA. There’s almost no time to dwell on what happened. Virtually every night there’s another game, in these Covid-19 days of a compressed schedule, frequent back-to-backs, sometimes on consecutive days.

The next game for the Warriors is Wednesday night against the Spurs at Chase Center. Then Thursday, there’s another one, against the Knicks at Chase. No time to reflect on a game that may be the most significant for a team trying to find its identity.

The Warriors trailed the Lakers, the best team in basketball, by 19 points in the third quarter, then trailed them by 14 in fourth. And the Warriors somehow won, 115-113, when Curry, who had an OK night, made a big basket at the end and LeBron James, who seemed distracted, missed one.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr was both disappointed with that start and delighted with that finish.

“We had a couple of good days of practice,” said Kerr, doing a remote interview from Staples Center in L.A. “Then we came out and stunk it up. It was way off, at least for the first half. But I liked our fight. We came back in the second half and finished it off.

“Our guys were flying around. We have to scrap. I don’t think we scrapped enough. If we play defense and compete like that, we have a chance to beat anybody.”

Well, they did beat the Lakers, who are the current champions and who had lost only three times previously this season. The game was the third of a TBS triple-header, and as Kerr pointed out it gave the nation a chance to see Kelly Oubre, who replaced Andrew Wiggins as the catalyst of the second unit, the guys off the bench.

“Down the stretch, in order to make that comeback, it started with our second unit,” said Kerr. “We were able to come back and continue building.”

To the public the Warriors are Curry, and he is the star. But Curry and Kerr — and Draymond Green, who had his best overall game so far — will remind us the key is defense. When the Warriors make stops, they subsequently make runs, which was the case Monday.

Curry gets open, free of the double teams, the Warriors get baskets. Steph was only 1-for-6 in a stagnant opening period and was just 8-for-22 for the game, but did get 26 points.

“I didn’t shoot well,” said Curry, “but I was aggressive. So were the others. When we’re aggressive, we’re able to make plays.” 

Oubre had 23, and Eric Paschall 19.

Rookie James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in the November draft, struggled, but Green told him, and us, that there will be days like that even for veterans and particularly for the new kids.

Green went to the basket a couple of times as well as going to teammates with passes, and was a major part of the equation.

“I think Draymond is still finding his way,” Kerr said of a man not long ago chosen Defensive Player of the Year. “He was off for nine months. His energy and intensity is what we need to win games.”

Once the defense was effective, Green and Curry worked together on offense, as we remember.

“This was a measuring stick for us,” said Curry. “We have to prove this is who we can be.” 

Which they did in the second half.

January 19, 2021 /Art Spander

Lakers, Warriors

articles, basketball

You still wonder what could have been for Aaron Rodgers

By Art Spander

It’s hard to watch Aaron Rodgers play as efficiently and successfully as he did in the NFL playoff game Saturday and not think what could have been. Indeed, what should have been.

Rodgers threw for 296 yards, and the Green Bay Packers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 32-18, to advance to next week’s NFC championship game, where they’ve been before. Four times before.

And when it comes to Rodgers, who has won a Super Bowl, we’ve also been there before.

He seems to be everywhere; in those State Farm Insurance commercials; usually in the field for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (not this year, however — no amateurs) and in the opposition’s hair. Or end zone.

Where he isn’t is in a 49ers uniform. Even though he grew up in Chico hoping to be, and as an undergrad played for Cal, maybe 25 miles away from the Niners' facility.

An old story? Absolutely, but also an irritatingly unforgettable story.

The Niners had the No. 1 selection in the 2005 NFL draft. The presumption was they would choose Rodgers, who one Saturday against the previous No. 1 team in the land completed his first 23 passes, tying an NCAA record.

That wasn’t good enough for the new 49ers coach, Mike Nolan, who wanted someone more athletic and mobile than Rodgers. The pick was star-crossed Alex Smith of Utah, who now 15 years, several teams, many coaches and one serious injury later is with the Washington Football Team.

Nolan last was defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys who, failing to qualify for to the postseason, fired him a week ago.

Nolan was hardly the only one not to put his faith and future in Rodgers. The quarterback remained untaken until the 24th pick by the Packers, whose QB at the time was Brett Favre.

“Quarterbacks need time to develop,” said Mike McCarthy, who in one of those all too typical sports mixtures was San Francisco's offensive coordinator when Nolan didn’t take Rodgers, became Rodgers' head coach with Green Bay and is now coaching the Dallas Cowboys, who just let Nolan go.

Rodgers has developed — into a star, a salesman and a celebrity. He’s 37, older than most NFL quarterbacks but younger than Tom Brady and Drew Brees, with whom he is ranked.

Asked about his performance Saturday, Rodgers was not quite as cool as he appears in the State Farm ads, like the one in which he launches a tee shot, wonders if the ball came down yet and then shrugs as it plops into the cup.

The victory Saturday at Lambeau Field in Green Bay (no frozen tundra on a 35-degree afternoon) set up Rodgers for his first home conference championship game. The other three, including last year’s loss at San Francisco, were on the road.

Unlike games in California during this Covid-19 crackdown, a few thousand fans were permitted to attend the win over the Rams.

“I’m definitely a little emotional, just thinking about what we’ve been through,” said Rodgers, who Saturday went 23 of 36. “It got me emotional with the crowd out there today.”

Rodgers threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams and a game-clinching 58-yarder to Allen Lazard with 6:52 remaining. Rodgers also had a 1-yard touchdown run, the first by a Packers quarterback in a playoff game at Lambeau since Bart Starr’s winning sneak in the Ice Bowl against Dallas on Dec. 31, 1967.

The Rams also had a Cal quarterback, Jared Goff, who was the first overall pick in the 2016 draft. He was in the Super Bowl his second season, but as of now he’s not Aaron Rodgers. His lone TV commercial is one of those ESPN promos.

At Pebble, a Pro-Am without any “ams,” including Bill Murray

By Art Spander

It was created by a man who could swing a 5-iron as impressively as he could hold a musical note. In time, his tournament, the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, became the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. What didn’t change was the last part of the label, “Am.”

The pros, from Snead and Hogan to Palmer, Nicklaus and Woods, had their place and their victories, but what made the Pro-Am special were the amateurs: entertainers, athletes and politicians as eager to compete and as we were to watch them. 

Now the event, a mid-winter festival on the Monterey Peninsula, has fallen victim to Covid-19, as have so many other attractions. They’ll hold the AT&T in February, as always, but not like before.

According to a release from the PGA Tour, the AT&T will be played “without the traditional multi-day format,” which means it won’t be the traditional Crosby/AT&T.

Inevitable, perhaps, the way the virus has surged, chasing the 49ers and the Sharks to Arizona and forcing the suspension of so many NBA and college basketball games, but still disappointing.

The courses are the same, although only Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill will be used, Monterey Peninsula Country Club unneeded for a greatly reduced field.

The charity beneficiary is the same, the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which Crosby told me in the early 1970s, when some of the pros didn’t like the format, was the only reason he didn’t withdraw his support.

The threat of inclement weather will be the same, although the Pacific storms are as unreliable as were Jack Lemmon’s tee shots.

Lemmon, of course, was a regular, a good guy if not a good golfer, who tried for years without success to make the cut but even in his unfulfilled attempts made us appreciate his persistence and sense of humor.

Sure, we were thrilled by Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson, but we were no less enthralled by Huey Lewis — who might break out in song at every tee box — or Tom Brady.

Back in the ’50s, when the world was naïve, the guy who kept us attuned and laughing was Phil Harris, who had a ton of one-liners and also more than a minimum of one-putts.

In one rainy Crosby, he slopped off the inundated 17th green at Pebble and told the press, “I can’t wait to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.” If you’ve heard that before, well, jokes survive.

The routines by Harris, Dean Martin and even Crosby himself have been taken over by Bill Murray, who has done everything from pull a female spectator into a bunker to hurl a frozen fish at spectators.

If the tournament occasionally resembled a variety show, well, how many times could you remind the audience that every putt breaks toward Carmel Bay?

Murray was a player as well as a comedian. He grew up near Chicago, caddying with his brothers, and in the 2011 AT&T he teamed with D.A. Points, who won the pro section. Murray won the pro-am.

On the 16th in the final round at Pebble, Points, getting into the spirit of things, yelled at Murray loud enough to he heard, “It would help if you made a putt.” Which Murray then did. “His being funny helped relax me,” said Murray, who hardly needs help at relaxing.

No Murray this winter. No quarterbacks — Tony Romo has been a consistent entrant, and Peyton Manning an occasional one — no wisecracks, no entrants sitting near the 17th tee being interviewed by Jim Nantz.

No crowd at the 15th tee, “Club 15” the description, chanting before the golfers hit their tee balls.

There will be golf played at Pebble next month, but not the golf we’ve come to expect. How can it be a pro-am without the “ams”?

Warriors’ Wiggins plays D and outplays the critics

By Art Spander

When a year ago Andrew Wiggins was traded by Minnesota to Golden State, a sports blogger named Brandon Anderson wrote, “The Timberwolves might have saved their franchise, while the Warriors made a catastrophic misstep that could put their dynasty on the brink.”

Basketball brinksmanship as practiced by the Dubs seems to be working. We’ll learn more after Tuesday night’s game against the Pacers at Chase Center.

The Warriors have won four of their last five, and in their most recent game Wiggins played like a man who could have been the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, which six years ago he was.

Even for his defense, which was unexpected — at least to those who thought they knew a man once labeled “Least Defensive Player” in the NBA from a plus-minus rating.

As an NBA observer tweeted last February when the Warriors acquired the frequently belittled Wiggins, ”Maybe he’ll smile with Steve Kerr.”

Kerr, the Warriors coach, certainly is smiling because of Wiggins. “We’re not asking him to change our franchise,” Kerr said of Wiggins. “We’re asking him to play defense, run the floor and get buckets. He’s capable of doing all that.”

As verified on Sunday night, the night Steph Curry was only 2 for 16, with just 11 points. Wiggins scored 17 and guarded Toronto’s Pascal Siakam down the stretch of the 106-105 victory.

“He just used his length, athleticism and anticipation,” said Kerr. “We now have someone we can put on the opposing team’s best player, whether it’s Pascal Siakam, LeBron James, Kawhi (Leonard) or Paul George.”

Klay Thompson had that responsibility, but of course he’s missing the season with the torn Achilles tendon.

The 6-foot-8 Wiggins always was expected to do more than he did, at least by his critics.

He grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, hockey country, and two years into high school moved to a prep school in West Virginia. A Feb. 7, 2013, article in Sports Illustrated knocked Canadian basketball and Wiggins’ work ethic. In his next game, he scored 57 points.

After a year at Kansas, Wiggins was taken first in the 2014 draft by Cleveland but, quickly enough in a swap that involved the Cavs, T-Wolves and 76ers, went to Minnesota. As part of the transaction, the Cavs got Kevin Love.

What Wiggins would get was complaints. Sure, he had impressive games, but not enough of them, even though he would be voted Rookie of the Year. The era belonged to the Warriors and Cavaliers, and T-Wolves fans were disenchanted.

As were some of the media.

During a Bulls-T-Wolves game two years ago, Chicago play-by-play announcer Neil Funk piled on Wiggins.

“We’ve seen Minnesota twice this season, and Wiggins has not been engaged in either game.” said Funk.

“He just kind of floats around out there — he does nothing ... Zach (LaVine) is just much more active than a Wiggins type, night in and night out … and Wiggins just has that, and I’m sure he wants to compete, we know he’s a talent, there’s no arguing that, but his body language is as if ‘I don’t care, I’m just out here.'”

Then he was out of there. One basketball observer couldn’t decide whether the Warriors were more thrilled getting Wiggins or getting rid of D'Angelo Russell.

The answer has arrived. Maybe Wiggins simply needed a team like the Warriors. Maybe he became more determined. Sometimes what’s needed is a change of scenery. Sometimes a change in motivation.

“I’m playing with the Defensive Player of the Year, Draymond,” Wiggins said of his new approach. “He’s out there, he’s vocal, he helps out a lot on defense giving us advice, just showing us certain things. We’ve got the rook down there, James (Wiseman) trying to clean stuff up. It’s been good.”

For the Warriors, and for Andrew Wiggins. At least so far.

Draymond is the one who makes that difference

By Art Spander

The best defensive player in the world. Steve Kerr said that about Draymond Green. Of course it’s an exaggeration, but this is an era of exaggeration, and if anybody is going tell us that it would be Kerr, who is Green’s coach with the Warriors.

And if anybody deserves that compliment, that exaggeration, it’s Green.

“There’s no sport where one player makes that much of a difference.” So said Chris Mullin, the Hall of Famer who once made a difference for the Warriors in the 1980s and now does their pre- and post-game TV.

That comment is not an exaggeration. It’s the truth.

In football, a player is 1/11th of the lineup; well, 1/22nd, considering offense and defense are separate units; in baseball, one-ninth; in basketball, one-fifth. But numbers alone are inadequate.

Even those of the win streak that the Warriors carry into Wednesday night against the Clippers at Chase Center. Two games.

A trifle compared to the 24 in a row that opened the 2015-16 season. Yet after an 0-2 start to the schedule, a bit of reassurance.

The Warriors have spent time practicing. James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in the November NBA draft, has spent time improving. Steph Curry has spent time making most of his shots. Green has spent time reminding everyone how much he was missed when absent because of a sore foot.

“He’s kind of our point forward in many ways,” said Kerr, “and the leader of the team.”

That last part is no exaggeration.

Curry is the headliner, the one who gets the points — 62 two games ago — and, with two MVP awards, the most attention. Think of the Dubs, and you cannot think of anyone but Steph. 

Wiseman is the comer, and his progress, with only three college games and then months of relative inactivity, has been tantalizing. When this kid learns the game, others will learn what he’s about to become: one of the greats.

Andrew Wiggins is the mystery, the first man taken in the 2014 draft but who has been twice traded and frequently criticized for being more unpredictable than reliable. Ah, but maybe this is his spot and his year.

Damion Lee, Eric Paschal, Kelly Oubre, Kent Bazemore and Kevon Looney are among the pieces on the roster.

Green is the feisty, experienced and wise guy who has to make certain those many pieces fit properly.

“He impacts the game so dramatically on defense,” Kerr said of Green’s play after the Warriors defeated the Sacramento Kings, 137-106, Monday night. “And then on offense he gets us organized.” 

In those recent glory days when Kevin Durant was around, and Klay Thompson was healthy and Andre Iguodala was anywhere he needed to be, Draymond got what was coming to him — NBA Defensive Player of the Year in ’17 — and made sure teammates got the ball.

There were incidents, the scuffle with LeBron James, then of Cleveland, and suspension in the 2016 finals; the argument with teammate Durant in November 2018. Nothing that would keep Draymond from his role.

Those days, five straight finals, three titles, are gone. So, through injuries (Thompson) or personnel movement, are most of the men from those teams, other than Green, who will be 31 in March, and Curry, who will be 33 also in March.

A feeling of familiarity. A need for adaptation.

“They know each other so well,” Kerr said of Green and Curry. “So their pick-and-roll game is beautiful to watch with their hand-backs. And Draymond understands how to get (Curry) open. Our defense gets a lot better with Draymond on the floor. Steph gets more transition opportunities as well.”

Then there are the other Warriors who leave Green uncertain.

“There are times out there,” Green confessed, “where I’m out there on the floor and I don’t know where to go because we’re all figuring each other out. So it’s important we get that movement, and even as important that I’m directing that movement and helping guys get that understanding.”

The best defensive player in the world seems as capable with the ball as without it.

For the Niners, a most unusual season

By Art Spander

So similar. And so different. The final game, and the 49ers had the lead going into the final quarter.

They couldn’t hold it a year ago in the Super Bowl, which was notably painful. Or on Sunday, in what ended a season that was as notably unusual, if only a trifle less painful.

A season with the loss of so many key players and, in a day or two, probably a key coach.

A season when a seemingly unstoppable virus, Covid-19, forced the Niners to abandon their training complex in Santa Clara, and forced the players and coaches to leave their homes and families.

A season that created as many questions — the essential one, who will be the starting quarterback in 2021? — as answers.

A season that, with a concluding 26-23 defeat by the Seattle Seahawks at State Farm Stadium near Phoenix, was both distressing, because it ended with a record of 6-10, and encouraging, because players said they gained new respect for teammates.

For the fans, the incidentals become, well, incidental. To them, it’s all about results, and if the Niners had to be transplanted, lock, stock and game plans, from Silicon Valley to the Valley of the Sun for more than a month, well, hey, it isn’t as if they were living in tents.

But sport, like so much in life, is a matter of routine. These weren’t college kids off for a fall break. They were grown men with wives and children and mortgages.

They knew there would be discipline. They knew there would be broken bones and twisted ankles. What they didn’t know until November was they would banned from practicing or playing where the Niners are headquartered — and forced to flee.

It would have been easier to say, this isn’t our year — which it wasn’t — yet in the final game, with a third-string quarterback (C.J. Beathard) with nothing at stake except pride, with thoughts that within minutes they’d be on a flight home, the Niners had a 16-6 lead in the fourth quarter over the playoff-bound Seahawks.

That should count for something, and it counted considerably with head coach Kyle Shanahan.

“I was real proud of the guys today,” Shanahan said. “I thought those guys competed their asses off in all aspects. I told them to hold their heads high. I didn’t think it was a moral victory or anything because I feel we should have won the game.” 

Almost certainly Shanahan and the Niners will lose coordinator Robert Saleh, who designed the defense that held the Seahawks to only two field goals through the first three quarters. “I hope everyone is not very smart and doesn’t hire him,” quipped Shanahan.

The coach wouldn’t offer a comment about the quarterback situation, although he has said as of now Jimmy Garoppolo would be back in charge. Garoppolo only made six games because of an injury. He was replaced by Nick Mullens, who then was hurt himself and replaced by Beathard.

There basically was no replacement for Nick Bosa, the 2019 defensive rookie of the year, who tore up a knee (ACL) in the Niners’ second game of the season. The same thing happened in the same game to another defensive line standout, Solomon Thomas.

Every subsequent game, there would be a graphic on TV showing how many different 49ers were out at one time or another, running backs, quarterbacks, defensive backs — you name them.

“I’m very happy,” said Shanahan, when asked if the end brought relief, if not a championship. “Very excited. It’s the first time I’ve packed two days in advance for anything … Being stuck in the hotel for over 30 days, it does wear on you a little bit. Not just me. The players. The cooks. The equipment guys. Everybody involved with us is ready to get back home.”

And, he pointed out, working for improvement.

“Once we were eliminated from the playoffs, we were ready to move on a little bit and get to next year. But we had to finish it.”

Before it finished them.

For the Rose Bowl, and Alabama, location is second to the result

By Art Spander

In the end, the location became less important than the result. Which despite traditionalists, and that includes me, is what counts.

To paraphrase Shakespeare about a certain flower, what’s in a game? If a pathway to another national championship for Alabama smells just as sweet, call it what you choose.

The red rose logo was on the turf at AT&T Stadium. The Crimson Tide seemed to be everywhere and Notre Dame virtually nowhere.

If one tradition was upturned, the Rose Bowl Game being held in Texas — and not even Pasadena, Texas — another remained: domination by Alabama, a 31-14 win over the Fighting Irish, in the event copyrighted as the “granddaddy of them all.”

Because of the Covid-19 surge in California and restrictions against spectators, for only the second time in its more than 100-year history the game had to be played somewhere other than the 92,000-seat stadium in Pasadena, Calif. 

Notre Dame might believe it shouldn’t have been played anywhere.

The Fighting Irish were down quickly. Alabama (12-0 and deservedly ranked No. 1) was ahead 14-0 with some four minutes to go in the first quarter.

And trying to ignore the critics from the media, most located someplace in Middle America, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly agreed with the announcers who did the game for ESPN.

“They made plays on the perimeter,” said Kelly, an acknowledgment that Alabama had too much speed, particularly receiver DeVonta Smith, who caught three touchdown passes.

That’s as many as anyone ever has caught in a Rose Bowl. But just as whether a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear makes a sound, there could be a question from purists (guilty, your honor) whether a record not set in the Rose Bowl is really a Rose Bowl record.

The record for Notre Dame in Rose Bowl games, whether in southern California or north Texas, is now 1-1, the win coming over Stanford in the 1925 game.

The Notre Dame record for the year is 10-2, which would thrill the fans and alums of all but three other teams in the land but apparently displeases those who remember the glory days of the Golden Dome, and say as much — in print or on air.

Alabama has become what Notre Dame used to be. And that point rubs on Kelly. Or at least the comments in the media do.

The Fighting Irish are now 0-7 in either BCS or New Year’s six bowl games, going back to a rout by Oregon State (Oregon State?) in 2000.

Notre Dame has been outscored by 161 points in those games, with the closest loss by 14 points. So Kelly wasn’t happy with the postgame questioning.

“This wasn’t a matter of not getting knocked off the ball or not having enough players to compete against Alabama,” he said. “I’m sorry if you don’t like it and if the national media doesn’t like it, but we’re going to go back to work and we’re going to put ourselves back in this position again.

“We came up short with the firepower. There is not a wider story than with the firepower and making a few more plays.”

Alabama has the firepower and has been making plays for many seasons under head coach Nick Saban. He missed a few days during the schedule when he tested positive for Covid, but the Crimson Tide never missed a beat. 

What he did miss, however, was the place that gave the game its identity.

“I don’t think there’s anything quite like the Rose Bowl, the tradition, the setting, the mountains,” said Saban. “It’s just a phenomenal experience. I wish our players had gotten the opportunity.”

He’s not the only one. Hey, Rosie, it wasn’t the same on New Year’s Day without you.

The crazy NBA: Curry frustrated; Clippers lose by 51

By Art Spander

The Warriors, who aren’t supposed to be very good, win a game by a point. The same night the Clippers, who are supposed to be very good, lose one by 51 points. And you think you understand the NBA?

The league is a compressed lunacy of late-game baskets, late-night charter flights and — other than LeBron James’ greatness — unpredictability.

I mean, whoever thought we’d read an AP story with a paragraph beginning, “The Clippers opened the third quarter on a 10-0 run to get within 40"?

Or that Steph Curry would be having trouble finding his shot?

Curry and the Warriors are back at it again Tuesday night, playing the Pistons in Detroit, their fourth straight road game to begin a season that already is a blend of shock (those routs by the Nets and the Bucks) and elation (that last-second in at Chicago on the 3-pointer by Damion Lee).

Asked if after that first victory there was a sense of relief, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, “Relief for sure, but more a sense that finally we can figure this thing out a bit."

What most of us figured out quickly enough is that it will take time for even so accomplished a shooter — he made 105 straight 3-pointers the other day in practice — to work smoothly with teammates other than the ones from the glory years.

“He’s frustrated,” Kerr said of Curry, “but that’s kind of natural. For Steph, this is a brand new team.”

A team without Kevin Durant or Klay Thompson or, until his sore foot heals, Draymond Green; a team with Kelly Oubre, Juan Toscano-Anderson, at times rookie James Wiseman and Damion Lee. A team as much seeking to make progress as to score points.

It’s one thing to know when to pull up for a jumper. It’s another to know who will be to your right if you decide to pass.

Kerr was an earlier version of Steph Curry as a player, if not quite as skilled, a gunner who could hit 3-pointers. He started with the Bulls, as a teammate of Michael Jordan, went to the Spurs and finished with the Blazers.

“Every time I went to a new team in my career,” said Kerr, “it was difficult to find comfort with my shots in the early going. And I think Steph is really going through the same thing because he’s not as comfortable where his shots are coming from because of different personnel.”

No question Thompson and Durant made it easier for Curry and everyone else on the Warriors. Sports are about adapting, or as Curry reminded, about learning and improving.

Not that Curry has far to go. He scored 36 in the 129-128 win at Chicago (and was supposed to take the last shot, but smartly the ball went to Lee), and in the three games Curry is averaging 25.

For Curry and the Warriors, who didn’t qualify for the playoffs, it was six months without basketball, then a week of practice and two exhibition games.

“We’ve never gone through this before as professionals, or at any level,” said Curry. “But no excuses. The shots I take I think I’m going to make. I seldom take one I don’t; maybe one or two bad shots in a game.”

Curry said that, for now, it’s energy that’s important, even more than accuracy. Same thing for Oubre, who’s been having a terrible time of it.

“The win was important,” Curry agreed. “1-2 is better than 0-3. A win in Detroit would make us .500 for the trip, which would be OK. The last thing you can do as a shooter is stop shooting, no matter how frustrating it is.”

And maybe find satisfaction that you didn’t lose a game by 51 points like the Clippers.

C.J. Beathard on win: ‘You couldn’t write a script for this’

By Art Spander

It didn’t mean much, this 49ers victory. Then again, it meant so very much.

It meant a team that had lost too many players with injuries and too many games — including the previous three — could show that the talent and courage clearly hadn’t been lost.

It meant C.J. Beathard, who a year ago had lost a brother, slain outside a Nashville bar during an altercation, could, with a belief in religion and his own skills, step out of the shadows and quarterback the Niners to a 20-12 upset victory over the Arizona Cardinals.

It does no good to wonder what might have been, in life or sport, but so often that’s the way we think. What happens, happens, often for the worst. Occasionally for the best.

Let’s listen to Beathard, who in his fourth season with the 49ers and his role as third-string QB, cut the long hair he had worn in memory of his brother and then Saturday at State Farm Stadium not far from Phoenix threw three touchdown passes and the Cards for a loop.

All Arizona (now 8-7) had to do for a spot in the playoffs was beat the Niners (now 6-9), as it did in the opening game of the season.

It did not, because the Niners' defense was remarkable, because the offense was dependable, because C.J. (for Casey Jarrett) was reliable. If you choose to think there was a bit of magic involved, well, Beathard will not disagree.

“This means more than I can really put into words,” said Beathard. ”Everything I’ve been through this year. The year anniversary of my brother’s passing. I just couldn’t write a script for this.

“I couldn’t pick things to go the way they did. The vibe in the locker room at practice when I got out there, it was if I had nothing to lose.”

You know the background, the numerous starters from last year’s Super Bowl team getting hurt week after week, especially on defense. The Buffalo Bills threw TD pass after TD pass against the 49ers. And of course, starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was gone with another leg injury, and then a week ago Sunday his replacement, Nick Mullens, incurred an injury to his passing arm.

Up stepped Beathard, who hadn’t started in two years.

The coaches call the plays, but they also call upon the guy who takes the ball from the center.

“People don’t know how much is on the quarterback’s plate,” said Niners fullback Kyle Juszczyk. “Every time we call a run, we’re calling two plays. It’s on the quarterback to decide on (reading) the defense. So much goes into the execution. I’m so excited with the job he did.”

And the job running back Jeff Wilson did, 183 yards on 22 attempts.

Or the defense did, limiting the Cardinals, the NFL’s third-ranked offense, to 350 yards (it was averaging 399) and of course, two field goals and a touchdown.

There was a missed extra point on the TD, something that seemed to be unavoidable. The Niners' consistent Robbie Gould missed one, after missing a 41-yard field goal, his first failure after 31 in a row.

Tight end George Kittle, he of the good humor and great blocking, returned after being out for weeks, and his presence helped as much as his play. “Practice was different with him there,” said head coach Kyle Shanahan.

“We didn’t have many guys left,” Shanahan added, referring to his lack of defenders, “but the people there were an inspiration. It came down to the final plays (when Arizona’s Kyler Murray was throwing deep).

“We didn’t tap out. We made the plays.”

And won a game, just as if it would have been scripted.

49ers' litany: Lose the ball, lose the game

By Art Spander

At least the 49ers didn’t lose to the Jets. Or the Rams, who did lose to the Jets. The Niners simply have lost to a great many others — including, on Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys.

Yes, the story is San Francisco losing more than Dallas winning, losing the football again and again, then the game, 41-33.

We've reached the point in this season that’s gone in too many directions — except the right one, other than those Rams games — that there’s little new, or good, to discuss. 

The mistakes are the same ones as virtually every week. Thus the observations are the same ones as virtually every week.

To wit, if you give the other team the ball on fumbles and interceptions, you’re doomed. The Niners did, four times, and they were.

How many times or ways need we hear a football team isn’t going to succeed if it keeps giving up the football? Answer: A great many, if it’s the 49ers.

They’ve had two turnovers or more in nine straight games. That can’t keep going on, only because for the 5-9 Niners the season can’t go on, literally, more than two more games. Thank heaven for small favors.

How this all came about the season after they were in the Super Bowl is one of the mysteries inherent in sport. Maybe because of the numerous injuries. Maybe because a few uninjured were not what we thought they’d be — or were supposed to be. Maybe because the opposition was better.

In what has become litany, Niners coach Kyle Shanahan summed up the game thusly: “We played good football. Offensively, special teams, the guys did a lot of good. But if they get our turnovers, it doesn’t matter what you do. You have little chance to win.”

Up until a couple weeks ago the Niners-Cowboys game at AT&T Stadium, between Dallas and Fort Worth was hot stuff: Sunday night, prime time, two teams with a history. Unfortunately, also two teams with losing records, so it was flexed out, replaced by Browns-Giants.

Al Michaels also was flexed out when, only days before kickoff, he tested positive for Covid-19. And although he insisted he felt fine, he had to step away for Mike Tirico. Yes, it’s a very strange year.

As Shanahan would reaffirm.

“We’ve put up with a lot of crap this year,” he said when asked if the injuries combined with the temporary relocation to the Phoenix area proved insurmountable.

“But too much to overcome? I think we would have overcome it if it weren’t for the turnovers. You play the game of football, you have a chance to win every week regardless of the circumstances. That doesn’t mean you can turn the ball over.”

Three minutes into the first quarter of a 0-0 game, the 49ers' Richie James fumbled away a punt return on the San Francisco 24. Seven plays later, Dallas led 7-0. Before you knew it, Nick Mullens was sacked, fumbled and, whoops, the Cowboys were up 14-0. The first quarter still had more than six minutes left.

In time, the Niners would move into a 14-14 tie, then a 24-24 tie. But Mullens would then throw two interceptions, one of which Shanahan said was a good pass. By deduction, you can guess the other was not.

“We ran the ball well in the first half,” said Mullens, “but we couldn’t run the ball every play. We needed to make some big-time plays. I didn’t capitalize enough on the opportunities.”

Mullens, who after all is a backup, has been pilloried for his errors. But the offensive line has not protected well, and if he doesn’t get the ball away in a hurry, then he gets pummeled — and often fumbles.

This season is as good as finished, although the Niners have two more games, including Saturday at Arizona — where the Cardinals are the home team, as opposed to the 49ers calling the Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium home because they were evicted from Santa Clara.

Along with everyone in a Niners uniform, Mullens was asked whether the move to a new facility in another state was the reason for the recent defeats.

“It’s been a challenge, yeah,” said the quarterback, “but as far as the turnovers, it’s not a valid excuse.”

There are no valid excuses.

Steph Curry is the face of Bay Area sports

By Art Spander

"Basketball is back.” Steph Curry made that comment a short while after he made us understand he too is back, throwing in those jump shots, tossing in those observations.

There will be no winter of discontent.

Curry and the Warriors head back to Sacramento, up Interstate 80, for another preseason game tonight against the Kings.

“Another opportunity to get better,” is how Curry describes it. “Trying to find my rhythm as fast as possible.”

Not that the search seems particularly difficult.

On Tuesday night, same teams, same place, Steph was rhythmical and accurate. He played 28 minutes. He scored 29 points. He had 4 assists. He had 3 steals,

He had what we know as a Steph Curry game.

Curry not only is the focus of the Warriors' offense, he’s the face of sports in the Bay Area.

He’s the celebrity who plays golf with Phil Mickelson and Peyton Manning. He’s the spokesman who congratulates Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer for becoming the winningest women’s basketball coach. He’s the two-time most valuable player.

There was a broken hand for much of the pandemic-shortened schedule last season. There were ankle problems early in his career. But mostly there has been satisfaction, for Curry, for the Warriors organization as it won championships and for the fans whose patience and loyalty were rewarded with a half-decade of success.

This is the 12^th season for Curry, who off court, with his family and outside interests, doesn’t miss a thing and on court almost never misses a free throw.   

He’s comfortable in his skin and in his roles as husband, father and hero, passing out compliments as smoothly as he passes the ball.

Asked the problem with a defense, which was criticized by head coach Steve Kerr after the Tuesday loss, Curry emphasized it was without Draymond Green, out after a positive Covid-19 test.

”He’s the quarterback, the defensive coordinator,” Curry said of Green. “He’s everything. We all have to be in sync. He makes us an amazing defense.”

Curry is no less appreciative of Steve Kerr, who became Warriors coach before the 2014-15 season, when the start of the domination — three championships, five consecutive NBA finals — began.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” affirmed Curry. “(Kerr) hasn’t changed at all, even with the physical stuff, being in and out of his seat.”

Kerr was so in pain from a bad back that at times, even during the playoffs, he was unable to sit courtside, and the coaching was done by Mike Brown, still the Warriors' primary assistant.

“We have great communication,” said Curry, talking about Kerr and himself. “He’s meant a lot to my success. He’s very consistent. So for me as a point guard, I’m an extension of him on the court. There’s transparency and communication, one through 15.”

Meaning each man on the roster.

This year figures to be different. Klay Thompson will be out. A 7-foot rookie center, James Wiseman, the No. 2 pick in the draft, in time may be in.

Someone wondered what the biggest thing Curry had learned in his seasons in the league and on the Warriors. Not surprisingly, the answer reminded us what we had learned about Curry, that he is eternally aware.

“I don’t think I learned this,” he said, “but I have an appreciation of what we get to do every single day. We haven’t lost that excitement.

“No matter how many championships we’ve won, or how many we lost., we keep the right perspective. The NBA is a blessing, and the ability to be in our world is an amazing experience. We all have lives off the court, and Steve appreciates the values we bring in our own stories.”

Yes, basketball is back, and so is Steph Curry. How fortunate for us all.

Niners’ Trent Williams: ‘Without the ball, it’s impossible to win’

By Art Spander

They tell us good teams find a way to win. This season, the 49ers are finding ways to lose. Therefore, the Niners must not be a very good football team. But you didn’t need any deductive reasoning to know that.

Not after the last two games, one against the Buffalo Bills when they were ineffective on defense, the other on Sunday against the Washington Football Team, when they were, well, terrible on offense.

Terrible, not that they didn’t run or pass — the Niners had 344 yards total to 193 for Washington. Terrible that a pass by Nick Mullens was intercepted and run back 76 yards for a touchdown — the infamous “pick six” — and a fumble by Mullens when he was sacked was returned 47 yards for a touchdown.

Small wonder, then, in their second straight Covid-19-forced home away from home, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., the Niners were defeated, 23-15, by a team only slightly less worse than they have become. But one that, unlike San Francisco, is going to the playoffs.

Three turnovers Sunday, the two that proved destructive and another lost fumble. There have been a ton of them since Mullens replaced the injured Jimmy Garoppolo — some Mullens’ fault, some not — and they are a primary reason the Niners are 5-8 in a season going nowhere.

As Trent Williams, the offensive tackle who joined the Niners this season after years in Washington, pointed out, “The ball is everything. Without the ball, it’s impossible to win.”

Cycles. We go through them. So do teams. When things are going fine, well, there are lyrics to remind us that all too soon they won’t go well. “Riding high in April,” Frank Sinatra sang, “shot down in May.”

Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. That’s Murphy’s Law. A season after so much went right, until the second half of the Super Bowl, the Niners have been beset by injuries, errors and bad breaks. That’s a blend guaranteed to ruin the hopes of any sporting franchise.

The Niners have been patching and matching and hanging on. Or had been. Was it appropriate that on the first offensive play of the game Sunday, receiver Deebo Samuel reinjured his hamstring and was finished?

Whatever, if you don’t lose fumbles and throw interceptions, you might have a chance.

Last year when he was at Ohio State, Chase Young was making the case why he should be the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NFL draft. That turned out to be Joe Burrow, the quarterback from LSU. Young went second, to Washington. His claim to be first has some validity.

He tore through the Niners in the second quarter (Williams was out of the game temporarily), knocked the ball from Mullens’ hand and ran it the 47 yards for the score that put Washington in front, 13-7.

That came at the end of the first half. The hit may have been intimidating. On the final play of the third quarter, Mullens was intercepted by Kamren Curl and run back 76 yards for a touchdown.

“We had a bad day,” said Niners coach Kyle Shanahan. “We missed a few opportunities early on offense. You don’t keep getting those again; Nick missed a few open throws. We struggled with some big penalties, I thought we had more drops than we usually have.

“Regardless we could have found a way, if it weren’t for the turnovers.”

Shanahan said after Mullens’ big interception, he thought about replacing him with C.J. Beathard. But as Beathard warmed up, Mullens passed to Kyle Juszczyk for a touchdown.

Mullens said on the fateful pick he was trying to find an outlet.

“You have to protect the ball,” Mullens agreed. “You can’t make that mistake. That changed the game.”

Nothing, unfortunately, is going to change the Niners’ record. “I expect us to play better than we did Sunday,” Shanahan said.

But in this season, expectations are thrown or fumbled away.

No excuses for Niners; no defense either

By Art Spander

No excuses. That was the brief observation of 49ers linebacker Fred Warner. No excuses. And no answers.

No doubt either. The Niners, as constituted now, with all their injuries, all, their backups, aren’t as good as the Buffalo Bills.

Or, the way things went Monday night, probably not as good as most other teams in the NFL.

Buffalo is on the rise, on the way to the playoffs. The Bills swept over the Niners, 34-24, Monday night in the first San Francisco home game to be played in Arizona because of the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the Bay Area.

But it was the opposition that was responsible for the result, not the location. The Bills have the two basics of winning football, a brilliant young quarterback and fine excellent defenders.

The Niners seemed dumbfounded, as much by what they didn’t do as to what the Bills did. If we heard it once in the post-game rhetoric from the Niners, we heard it a dozen times.

They were not surprised. They were just, well, beaten. Not defeated, at least to their way of thinking. That would be a mental thing, an admittance, a concession. This was, well, confusion.

A lack of execution was the explanation, bringing us back to 1976 and the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers — coach John McKay being asked what he thought of the Bucs’ execution and answering, “I’m in favor of it.”

To a man, the Niners insisted they knew what was coming, other than Allen’s ability to avoid being sacked  — extending the play is what it’s called — even more than perceived from films. Patrick Mahomes did it to the Niners in the Super Bowl, moving, scrambling, avoiding and, when required, running. Now, déjà vu, here came Allen, in the 2018 draft, one year after Mahomes.

Allen on Monday night passed for 375 yards and four touchdowns. That he gained only 11 yards rushing is a trifle misleading. It was the way he kept a play alive that was important.

The Bills had 449 yards in all, the most allowed this season by the Niners, who are 5-7. The Bills are 9-3.

Asked what he thought about the defense, Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said, “Obviously it didn’t work out well.”

The offense also was lacking. And no, the Niners didn’t blame their difficulties on needing to move for several weeks to the Phoenix area when Santa Clara County banned contact sports.

“We just didn’t get it done,’ said linebacker Dre Greenlaw. “They ran similar things to what we expected. We just didn’t execute.”

They were outplayed, but few people — if any — tell you that. Nobody wants to admit they didn’t have a chance, which after the first quarter the 49ers didn’t. Sure, there were a few key plays, an interception by Warner negated by a penalty; a lost fumble by Brandon Aiyuk. But the Bills owned the game.

“They were calling the perfect plays to everything we were dialing up,” said Warner.

The Bills were in control, literally. They had the ball only two seconds fewer than 25 minutes. The 49ers couldn’t get much done on offense and virtually less done on defense.

“We knew Allen could run,” said Shanahan, “and he’s got a big-time arm.”

Watching the game from a box at State Farm Stadium was rehabbing Niners quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, as once more the position belonged to Nick Mullens who, well, looked decent but didn’t look like Allen.

He threw for 316 yards and three touchdowns, but trying a sneak at the goal line in the fourth quarter he was called for illegal procedure.

“I anticipated the snap,” said Mullens, “and moved too early.”

That wasn’t an excuse, just an error in judgment.

Rafer Johnson: Literally a champ, essentially a leader

By Art Spander

“Now the young world has grown old; gone are the silver and gold.” Lyrics from a song recorded by Frank Sinatra, among others. About the passing of time. About memories.

I thought of the words when I heard that Rafer Johnson had died at 86. Maybe because he was a man of both silver — if only once — and gold.

Also, because we were classmates at UCLA. He was a friend, as was his younger brother Jimmy, no less an athletic star, who became a Pro Football Hall of Famer as a defensive back with the 49ers.

Rafer, such a distinctive name. Such an unpretentious person.

A champion literally, with that narrow victory over C.K. Yang — another UCLA student — in the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics.

A leader essentially, who would be elected student body president and in time be known for his global support of human rights.

The Johnsons were from Kingsburg, some 25 miles from Fresno. As was Monte Clark, who went to USC, played in the NFL and in 1976 was 49ers coach.

Sports were a way of life in the San Joaquin Valley, the sons of farmers and oil workers winning games and fame. Bob Mathias, a two-time Olympic decathlon champion, was from Tulare; Frank Gifford, the football great, was from Bakersfield.

No television, no internet. Kids played. And studied.

College campuses were quiet. As did others at UCLA, Rafer went to class. Unlike most others, he went on to sporting greatness.

Not as a forward on a middling Bruin basketball team in 1959 — Denny Crum, who would go on to coach Louisville to two NCAA championships, was a teammate — but as a sprinter and long jumper. 

Track and field was prominent in the days before the Giants and Dodgers moved to California. Johnson did have that silver from the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and was involved in school activities.

Still, he never big-timed anyone, particularly a sports writer from the school newspaper, the Daily Bruin. You’d see him around campus in what was the unofficial attire of the era, a white shirt with a sweater draped over his shoulders. He was humble. He was purposeful.

The passing of others is a reminder of our own mortality. We exist in our own fantasies, cushioned against reality. When in 2016 the death of Arnold Palmer was announced, a well-known golfer who idolized Palmer told me, “I thought he would never die.”

It’s been a tragic few months for sports. We've lost Tom Seaver — another from the Central Valley — Joe Morgan, Paul Hornung, Bob Gibson, Diego Maradona. Now Rafer Johnson.

I last talked to him four or five years ago. It was at halftime of a UCLA basketball game at Pauley Pavilion, just a couple of alums discussing the state of the team and the state of the world.

NCAA championship banners, won after both of us had graduated, hung from the beams. Rafer didn’t have anything to do with those, although he played for John Wooden decades earlier.

Rafer’s contributions to the school and society are of a different type.

He was at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. in June 1968 when Robert Kennedy was shot, and he leaped in to help capture the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan.

He was chosen to carry the torch into the stadium and climb the steps to the rim of the Coliseum, lighting the permanent torch to start the 1984 L.A. Olympics.

UCLA would have sports heroes such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Troy Aikman and Evelyn Ashford.

But there has never been anyone like Rafer Johnson.

Reminder of the ’80s: 49ers don’t whine, they win

By Art Spander

This one was reminiscent of the way the 49ers played in the ’80s, responding to adversity with a win, not a whine.

This one told us all we need to know about Kyle Shanahan’s leadership and his players’ character. 

This one told us that despite the changes and the passing of years, the Niners retain a link to those teams of the ’80s, the team of the decade.

In those great seasons of long ago, with men such as Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Ronnie Lott, nothing seemed to get in the Niners’ way.

They overcame bad breaks and bad flight connections. They played in the ice of Chicago and the humidity of Miami. They had injuries. They had dropped passes.

They never had misgivings.

It was as if their unspoken motto was “Shut up and play,” words that after this weekend would perfectly fit the current team, which Saturday was in effect evicted from its facility and stadium and then Sunday in Inglewood beat the Rams, 23-20, in the final seconds.

“What our team went through really the last two weeks, then a week off, the Covid stuff,” said Shanahan, “I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

What they went through were consecutive defeats, three of them, a bye, then a declaration from Santa Clara County that, because of a spike in coronavirus cases, they weren’t permitted to hold games or workouts at their team's normal venue.

What they went through were doubts about where the team would move temporarily — Texas? Arizona? — and questions about being separated from families.

But the doubts and worries didn’t throw them off the task at hand, playing and winning a football game. Beating the Rams.

Which they did for a fourth straight time, Robbie Gould’s field goal over the crossbar with 0:00 on the clock breaking the 20-20 tie.

The story of the game that pushed the Niners’ record for this confusion of a season to 5-6 was defense.

Along with the unending Covid-19 threat. Along with the return of Raheem Mostert and Richard Sherman. Along with turnovers (four for the Rams, three for the Niners).

Niners defensive coordinator Robert Saleh had a brilliant game plan. (“He’ll be a head coach very shortly,” said Shanahan, as rumors circulated of Saleh replacing the fired Matt Patricia at Detroit.)

The Rams early on seemed incapable when they had the ball, trailing 17-3 midway through the third quarter. It was when the 49ers had the ball that problems started.

Mostert, who had been out the last couple of games — isn’t everyone on the Niners injured, or does it just seem that way? — scored a touchdown for a 7-3 lead in the first quarter.

That went to 14-3 when rookie tackle Javon Kinlaw, the first-round draft pick, swatted a Jared Goff pass, grabbed it and carried the interception 27 yards for a TD. A pick-six, as they say.

Mostert was carrying in the third quarter when the Rams’ Aaron Donald, the best defensive lineman in the league, reached around and extricated the ball. It was brought back 20 yards for a score by Troy Hill. Oops.

After a 61-yard run by rookie Cam Akers, the Rams then scored another touchdown, and the Niners were behind, 20-17. When you’re figuratively homeless for some three weeks plus, and then possibly have to be quarantined to get back where you’re supposed to be, a scoreboard deficit is trivial.

Shanahan said he was impressed the way occasionally maligned QB Nick Mullens (252 yards, one INT) rallied the Niners down the stretch. He said he was no less impressed with the arrangements by the Niners organization in what the TV announcers say “are challenging times.”

“Everyone here has been so committed to keeping safe,” Shanahan said. “We know how big a deal the virus is.”

Without saying so, Shanahan implied the Niners were blindsided by the Santa Clara decision to halt contact sports — is there any sport which has more contact than the NFL? Hockey maybe, but the Sharks aren’t practicing yet.         

The unexpected happens. It’s happening to the 49ers.

They didn’t whine, they won. Like the teams of the past.