Baller-in-Chief

(From Sekou Smith’s Hangtime Blog via NBA Fanvoice Online)

Who would you take in a game of H-O-R-S-E between Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant and the leader of the free world?

Proper etiquette suggests you go with the world’s most important (person and) basketball fan and not the world’s most important basketball player.

And since this hypotehtical competition would take place on President Barack Obama’s home turf, we’re going with the home team.

Chances are the President and Bryant won’t have time for games when the White House welcomes the Los Angeles Lakers this afternoon to honor their 2008-09 championship season.

But there’s nothing wrong with dreaming a little bit. (And here is a little video cheat sheet for the President if he does decide to take Kobe on):

Kobe’s NBA Finals Top 5 Plays
Checkout Kobe Bryant’s top 5 plays during the NBA Finals.

We could let Magic Johnson officiate. He’s one of several former Lakers greats expected to be in the visiting party, which will also include NBA officials in addition to the Lakers, their coaches and various other staff members.

This is reportedly the Lakers’ third trip to the White House, they also made visits in 1985 and 2002.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson is becoming a regular on these sorts of outings, having also visited with the Bulls during their championship days.

The Kobe Bryant-led Lakers earned this visit, though. And here’s a look back at how they did it:

NBA Finals Top 10 Plays
From Dwight’s record-setting night to Fisher’s clutch three-pointer, check out all the best plays.

I don’t know what you have planned today. But I’m taking a late lunch and tuning in to NBA.com to see Kobe, Ron-Ron Artest and the rest of the Lakers invade the East Room for a visit with the President.

(From Forum Blue & Gold)

The Lakers got to meet the President Monday, and the only thing that would have made it better is weather that would have allowed it outside on the basketball court President Obama had installed at the White House. And with the way the Lakers have been playing defense lately, no doubt Obama could have dropped 20 on them.

This new ad spot, which first aired on Thanksgiving, has to be one of the best football commercials ever, and is definitely the best commercial ever involving a sitting President of the United States.

What more proof is needed that Barack Obama is the Baller-in-Chief?

From the NFL:

In support of his United We Serve initiative, President Obama and NFL stars Drew Brees, DeMarcus Ware, and Troy Polamalu team up to highlight the importance of fitness for America’s children. The NFLs Play 60 initiative stresses that young people can live a healthy lifestyle by engaging in 60 minutes of physical activity a day. The Presidents United We Serve initiative encourages all Americans to get engaged in their communities and help create a brighter future for our nations youth through service.

Look at Polamalu in the background looking as genuinely excited and playful as a little kid — priceless.

(From Elizabeth Williamson for The Wall Street Journal Online)

A Star on the Court, He’s Called a Hacker On the Course; Fans Miss the ‘Original Guy’

One day last summer, Gene Mulak, observing carnage in the sand trap, decided it was time to rescue the Leader of the Free World.

“Open the clubface more!” the golf pro yelled to President Barack Obama. A rank of bodyguards stiffened when they heard the shouting, but the commander-in-chief continued to hack away, sand flying, recalls Mr. Mulak, a resident professional at the Vineyard Golf Club in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Mr. Obama waved off the guards and welcomed Mr. Mulak into the pit. The pro says he gave the president tips on his golf stance and his swing, both of which were conspiring against him. “He would have had trouble getting out of any bunker in the country,” concludes Mr. Mulak.

Which all serves to deepen a mystery that has surrounded the presidency: Why has Barack Obama forsaken basketball for the links?

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama played a mean, frequent and public game of hoops. He played outdoors and in, with pols, pros, troops in Kuwait and university kids half his age. “For people our age, it was like watching Clinton on ‘The Arsenio Hall Show,’ playing the saxophone,” says Alex Podlogar, a 34-year-old sportswriter at the Sanford Herald in Sanford, N.C.

But as president, Mr. Obama has neglected the court. He has played only seven known games of basketball since taking office, compared with 25 rounds of golf, a sport he picked up about a decade ago when he was an Illinois state senator. That’s more golf than former President George W. Bush played in two terms, according to CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who tracks presidential trivia. (In 2003, Mr. Bush quit golf, saying he did so out of respect for the troops serving in Iraq. Since leaving office, he has returned to the sport, an aide says.)

And where Mr. Obama’s basketball game is showy and often televised, his golf is furtive and off-the-record. He plays with junior aides and discreet longtime friends. There’s no press allowed onto the course with him, no cameras — and few witnesses. A foursome of loyal staffers often plays out ahead of him, clearing the way and trying to ensure no one spies.

Official White House photo by Samantha Appleton
Fans say President Barack Obama has forsaken his stellar basketball game for a mediocre golf game, a sign that he’s gotten ’soft.’

The frequency and secrecy of the president’s golfing has infuriated some of his basketball fans. This love of the links can’t be for keeps, they moan, for he who plays secretly must surely play badly.

How badly? His score is a matter of “national security,” deflects David Axelrod, political adviser to the First Duffer. White House aides said playing golf gets the president outdoors more, but declined to comment further on why he appears to be favoring golf over hoops, or why members of the press haven’t been allowed to watch him tee off.

Postings by golf observers on the Web site Baller-in-Chief, which is primarily devoted to the president’s basketball game, posit a brutal answer: Mr. Obama has a golf handicap in the mid-20s, considered weak to average, and a cramped swing that’s not so pretty.

A recent anonymous posting on Golf.com comes from a golfer who claims to have caught some of the action: “I had the misfortune of being stuck in a group on the same course as the Prez and his buddies and watching them play one hole in the time it took our foursome to play 3 was painful. The only thing stopping us from telling them to pick it up was the incredibly large security detail he had with him.”

Some people dissing the president’s golf game have an agenda: They want him back on the basketball court.

“The fact that he isn’t playing [basketball]…is a metaphor for those people who think he’s gotten soft, backed off of his promises, sold out,” says Claude Johnson, Baller-in-Chief’s founder and owner of Black Fives Inc., a basketball merchandising firm in Greenwich, Conn. “When President Obama goes back to basketball, that will be a sign that we haven’t lost the original guy.”

Fifteen of the past 18 presidents have played golf, according to “First Off the Tee,” a history of presidential golf by Don Van Natta Jr. Dwight D. Eisenhower did so with military routine. John F. Kennedy was a graceful player known for lucky breaks. Bill Clinton fudged his score so often that some golfers call a mulligan — a penalty-free do-over for amateurs — a “Clinton” or “Billigan.”

Mr. Obama’s aides say the president, known for his discipline, doesn’t take mulligans and adheres to every rule on the course. When in Washington, Mr. Obama most often plays on one of two military courses, Fort Belvoir in Virginia and Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. At Andrews, the press is safely quarantined in a nearby food court.

The president isn’t all fun and games when he’s on the course. Before teeing off at the Vineyard Golf Club, for example, the noted orator couldn’t resist offering a snap address to 400 people penned in on the deck of the club house. Mr. Mulak, the golf pro, says Mr. Obama hits in one direction. “Barack generally hits his ball to the left,” he says.

Matt Lombard, a staffer in the pro shop at Mink Meadows Golf Club in Martha’s Vineyard, hoped to catch the president’s game during the Obama family vacation on the island in August. He says he was bringing golf balls down to the driving range when the Secret Service stopped him, dumped the bucket and tapped each ball with a small hammer.

Mr. Lombard was shut into the pro shop with a couple dozen other people, who saw the president tee off with a swing Mr. Lombard describes as: “Eh, not so much.” The group strained to see a presidential putt. “He took it as a gimme,” says Mr. Lombard, referring to the tradition of automatically counting the next stroke as in the hole if the ball is close enough. His conclusion: Mr. Obama “ought to play a little more basketball.”

Presidential golf ball

A day later, the president rushed through a bicycle ride with his family, then headed back to the Vineyard Golf Club, the island’s most challenging course. As Mr. Obama hacked through the grass, some 30 members of the White House press corps sat out of sight on a bus for five hours.

Mr. Mulak says he never learned Mr. Obama’s score that day, but figures he surely broke 100, an average score for a hacker on a tough course. “Solid shots — I wouldn’t say straight lasers at the pin,” he says.

Back in Washington, there are signs that the president’s basketball jones is returning.

A tennis court behind the White House has been restyled into a basketball court. Last month, Mr. Obama gave it a road test, inviting over some congressmen and cabinet members for a game.

It’s about time, says Mr. Podlogar, the North Carolina sportswriter. “Let me put it in language you might be better able to understand, Mr. President,” he wrote recently in his newspaper: “Basketball? Yes, you can. Golf? No, you can’t.”

WSJ’s Elizabeth Williamson discusses how fans of President Obama’s basketball game are lobbying to get him back on the court and off the golf course.

(From Huffington Post via Plum TV)

The Obamas touched down on Martha’s Vineyard soil Sunday afternoon, and Plum TV was there to capture President Barack Obama’s first golf swing on the Vineyard. It was a fine cut, followed by a fist pump and bow. Plum TV was also treated exclusive tour of the course by resident golf pro Mike Zoll and took a sneak peak into the gift bag Farm Neck will be presenting to the first family.

Golfing nearby were Larry David and Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck.

In June, the president told “The Early Show” that he enjoys golf because it makes him “almost feel normal … you’re out of the container … It’s as close as you’re going to get to being outside of this place.”