Waking from the Dream 大梦方觉醒（五）

They were the bridge that would take the NBA from the fledgling prosperity of the '80s to the outrageous fortune of the new millennium. Today you can see Kevin Garnett's name on a contract in the nine digits; Kobe Bryant landing a staggering new sneaker deal; Grant Hill selling soft drinks; Ray Allen as a genuine movie star; Vince Carter and Jason Williams' jaw-dropping carnivals appearing as often on television as The Sopranos; and a cyber-Tim Duncan or Allen Iverson elevating across your video game screen, is in large part because of basketball's first generation of pop culture stars.

fledgling：羽毛初长的雏鸟，刚会飞的幼鸟，无经验的人，初出茅庐的人。例如，a fledgling actress初出茅庐的女演员。 millennium：太平盛世，一千年。 carnival：狂欢节，饮宴狂欢。

他们是一座桥--从小富至大贵。正是他们首先开拓流行文化，使新一代球员高速走向飞黄腾达。

They took the sport where no one imagined it could travel, and secured a place in history that will survive even the frivolity of a new, plugged-in, highly disposable sports nation. The snapshots will endure; the memories refuse to fade away.

I am an old-school survivor. Old enough to have seen Earl Monroe in an orange Bullets uniform; old enough to remember Oscar Robertson backing down all those hopeless souls into the lane; old enough to know the crossover dribble wasn't first perfected by Iverson (wasn't it Archie Clark?); old enough to remember tight shorts that hitched up above the thighs and sweats without designer logos on them.

Frivolity：轻薄，轻率，无聊的举动。例如，frivolous behavior轻浮的举动；She has a frivolous nature and won't take anything seriously."她生性轻浮，什么事情都不肯认真对待。" snapshot：快照，急射，简单印象。 logo：标识语。

我还记得早期篮球的传统形象--并不象现在这样风光。

But I am not a curmudgeon. I celebrated the epoch of the New Jack generation of b-ballers, witnessing the arrival of Michigan's Fab Five while working as a sports columnist in Detroit. I actually like baggy shorts -- but not black socks (When I was growing up, only geeks and tourists wore black socks with sneakers). So I love the NBA's new wave. Yet as much as I love its emerging stars, I have a deep and abiding loyalty to my Dream Team Generation. It began with Magic and Bird, who showed us something that we had all almost completely forgotten about during basketball's down times. They became the NBA's biggest individual stars by celebrating the most essential elements of the team.

curmudgeon：乖戾的(老)人，脾气坏的人，爱争吵的(老)家伙。

我实际上还有点怀念那时的篮球，但我更爱梦之队时期的NBA，伯德和约翰逊开创了巨星时代。

They passed the ball.

They found every way to make the team better, to elevate their teammates' games, and in doing so, owned just about every championship banner that hung from the rafters in the early and mid-'80s. It has been a while since they departed, and we've all adjusted quite well to that. We see them both on the sidelines in suits and that seems OK now.

banner：旗帜，横幅，标语。例如，Kate carried our school banner on the top of a hill. 凯特在山顶上举着我们的校旗；the banner of freedom 自由的旗帜。

他们做了一切努力来使梦之队变得更好，我们也顺利地接受他们的离去。

MJ, on the other hand, we are having troubles with. We have not handled his departure quite so well. We can intellectualize his retirement -- he left on top, his team was ready to begin rebuilding, he had no more challenges to conquer -- but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I imagine this is what it must have been like for my father's generation, when guys like Willie Mays and Henry Aaron walked away from baseball.

Intellectualize：使有理智；将……作理性研究(或阐述)。 例如：intellectualize about world problems--探讨世界大事。 Conquer：征服；占领。The French conquered England in 1066. 1066年法国人征服了英格兰。另外conquer还有"获胜，赢得，击败"的意思，例如He has conquered her respect.他得到了她的尊敬。By the way，你知不知道"不成功，便成仁"怎么说？--"To conquer or to die"。

乔丹功成身退，但我们却对乔丹恋恋不舍。