Moving

Within the next few days I’ll be shutting down this exact blog and continue much of the same writing for a reputable website in the Capital Region.  Give me a few days to iron out the kinks of learning a new program and we’ll be up and running with the an automattic re-direction from this site to the new one.  Thanks!

Next Up

The Los Angeles Lakers coaching search is almost over and I think they’ve found their man.  If they can agree on terms, it looks like former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown will be steering the ship in Southern California.  Although some folks believe there are other stronger candidates out there, I think Brown would be a nice fit in Laker Land.  Firstly, the one thing that Brown always focused on as a coach in Cleveland was defense.  Only once after 2006 did Mike Brown’s Cavs not rank in the top 7 teams in the league in defensive efficiency.  Look at the past 25 years as a sample size and try arguing that defense doesn’t win you championships.  Actually, forget the past 25 years, you don’t even have to look past the Miami Heat and how they’re winning games in these playoffs.  Secondly, I think Mike Brown is a great fit for L.A. for the fact that he’s a charismatic young man, and has the ability to motivate…something I think unfortunately has to be done more often in today’s NBA seasons than we’d like to think.  He seems a bit more relatable to the league’s younger demographic than say a guy like Rick Adelman.  He clearly knows how to handle superstars, a much-needed characteristic when coaching the Lakers and Kobe Bryant.  Even though Brown’s Cleveland teams never won it all, I thought he did a great job with that team (in 5 years, one finals appearance and two Eastern Conference Championship appearances) and the fact that they didn’t win it all had to do more with the lack of overall talent on the Cavs than it did with Mike Brown.  Now I know many Laker fans are calling for a ‘in house’ hire of Lakers assistant Brian Shaw, but with the window of opportunity in L.A. closing, is now the time to hire a guy with zero experience?  He may be a great coach, but he may not be.  As much as L.A. would probably love to hire a home-grown guy, this is clearly not the time for an experiment.  I may be naive, but Brown seems to be a logical fit.  This won’t be any walk in the park though.  In a nutshell, Mike Brown needs to understand he’s not re-inventing the wheel with this veteran team.  He must have the ability to be humble and check his ego at the door while getting the most out of his already talented club.  Equally as difficult will be doing all that at the same time the local and national media dissect his every move as he attempts to fill the shoes of the winningest coach in the history of basketball.  Easier said than done.

Very ‘Mets’ of Him

What in the blue hell was New York Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon thinking when he went on record in an interview and blasted his own players?  First of all, the article by the New Yorker was supposed to detail Wilpon’s own underdog story, not current Mets players, but I guess ‘ol Freddy had other plans.  I’m confused as to why he would put himself in this position, especially with the critics glaring spotlight already being shined on the Mets and Wilpon for being an investor in Bernard Madoff ‘s Ponzi scheme.  What was the point of throwing your own players under the bus?  To motivate?  To just be heard?  Wilpon came at his shortstop Jose Reyes saying he won’t get a large ‘Carl Crawford’ type of contract because “he’s had everything wrong with him.”  (In a year when Jose Reyes is on pace to have one of the best seasons of his career in terms of hits, batting average and slugging percentage no less).  Here Jose Reyes is not only healthy, but contributing, and he has to hear his very owner saying this.  What’s the upside?  I can’t think of one.  I’ve heard a reputable sports commentator saying he loved the honesty from Wilpon.  Honest?  Maybe.  Pointless?  Certainly.  You would think an owner of a Major League franchise trying to pick up the pieces from misguided decision-making would think a bit harder before making statements that he knows will turn into a national story.

Worth a Thousand Words

Sometimes just a picture says it all.  I was browsing through google’s images of Durants dunk and this awsome shot came up.  Figured I’d throw it up and share. 

Long Live the ‘King’

As I’m sure most of you now know, former pro wrestler the ‘Macho King’, AKA ‘Macho Man’, Randy Savage died Friday morning in a car accident.  Growing up I was a huge Savage fan.  From ages 7-13 the guy seemed larger than life.  Not all wrestlers have what Savage had.  That ‘it’ factor.  The guy would often wear blue and white tiger-striped pants, huge sun glasses, a jacket with foot long strands hanging along with knee-high boots.  When he was the ‘Macho King’ for the first half of his career, dude would literally wear a cape and carry a king’s sceptre.  How can you not like a guy who pulls that off?  You could never confuse his voice and his interviews were outrageous.  You would have to decode what he was trying to say and Q and A usually ended with him storming off camera and you remaining confused.  Savage would scream at the top of his lungs to emphasize a point, followed by whispering as low as possible in the following sentence.  He would usually have his on and off-screen wife Queen Elizabeth next to him in interviews just to degrade her for two and half minutes.  And Savage was as entertaining in the ring as he was outside of it.  In a day where guy’s didn’t have buried alive or ‘hardcore’ matches, savage could wrestle with the best.  Macho Man has long been established as one of the greatest wrestlers of all-time, and will surely be missed by all those who he used to entertain.  “DIG IT”

This is a classic Randy Savage ramble from the 80’s.  I’m nearly 100% positive Macho sniffed a “Sheen” amount of cocaine before shooting this interview.  Listen to the absurd sentences he’s putting together and try not to laugh.  Rock on Macho!

Statue of Limitations?

Like most everyone, I was shocked when I heard Lakers all-time great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar speaking publically this week about just how bad his relationship with the Lakers organization has deteriorated.  Aside from the claims I heard from Kareem, I have no idea of the details from the fallout (especially from the other side), but one point he did raise has legitimate validity.  Currently there are five statues outside Staples Center in Los Angeles, and Kareem believes he’s been slighted by not having one of his own considering all that he’s done for the Lakers franchise.  Now normally I would just write this off as egotistical ex-pro athlete talk, but I think Kareem is justified in his claim.  Most of us understand what the career of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar brought to the Lakers, the NBA, and the city of Los Angeles so I won’t bore you with the numbers.  That being said, let me bore you with some numbers:  The 7-foot plus, goggle wearing, sky hooking machine has scored the most points in the history of the NBA!  Number one.  First place.  Nobody ahead.  On top of that, he’s third all-time in both blocks and rebounds!  And if dominating 3 of the 5 major statistics in basketball isn’t good enough for you, how about being an all-star an NBA record 19 times!  Defense?  Try 11 times on the first or second team all-league D.  Measure somebody’s success in championships?  Kareem has 6!  MVP’s?  Kareem has 6!  All the numbers are silly.  The cherry on top is that he actually played his college basketball at UCLA and won 3 National Championships and is widely considered the greatest college basketball player of all-time!  And he did it in Los Angeles!  What other criteria could one measure?!?  So who the hell else could possibly have a statue outside Staples Center if this man doesn’t?  Thor?  Zeus?  Christ himself?  Try Wayne Gretzky.  Don’t get me wrong, Wayn-o is the greatest to ever step on frozen water but he only played in L.A. for 8 years!!  Gretzky never won a single championship in Los Angeles and literally went seasons without making the playoffs with the Kings!  His best years were clearly in Edmonton with the Oilers where he won 4 straight championships.  That’s where Gretzky deserves a statue….Oh, wait…HE ALREADY HAS A STATUE THERE, erected in 1989!  You want to put another one up in L.A. of ‘The Great One’? Fine.  But not before Kareem.  And because Oscar De La Hoya is from East L.A. he too gets a statue outside Staples?  Before Kareem??  No way.  And I hate to bring it here, but I have to…As great as Magic Johnson was for the Lakers (In my opinion the best point guard to ever play), he has less championships, less MVP’s, less All-Star appearances, less NCAA titles and less individual statistical records.  Now of course Magic deserves a statue, but what I don’t understand is that Magic retired years and years after Kareem did and gets a statue before him?  I think this is an example of what Kareem meant when he said instead of being on the back burner, he didn’t feel like he was even on the stove.  For god’s sake the former Laker’s play-by-play announcer Chick Hern got a statue!  I don’t mean to take anything away from any of the great athlete’s or personalities who have statues outside Staples Center, but the point is if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar doesn’t have his likeness poured in brass permanently outside Staples Center, than nobody should. 

Hard 2 Guard

How in the world do you guard Dirk Nowitzki?  Everyone seems to be raising the question and for good reason.  The German giant played out of his mind Tuesday night in Dallas, shooting an absurd percentage while putting up nearly 50 in a game 1 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.  So what’s the recipe for slowing this man down?  A 7-footer with a soft touch, an unorthodox arsenal, and uncanny range.  But didn’t we already know this?  I’m not sure why it took another playoff outburst to get people talking about how good this guy is.  RIGHT NOW dude is a top 25 scorer in NBA HISTORY and has scored more points than solidified legends such as Ray Allen, Clyde Drexler, Tim Duncan, Paul Pierce, and yes…Larry Bird.  Just like any other great offensive player, when the shot is falling, no defender or scheme will outmatch it.  With the talent that’s in this league, good offense beats good defense every single time.  But if you’re the Thunder, you can’t just hope he misses.  How do you attempt to contain him?  Personally, I think it starts with the defender.  Within the first two or three possessions of the game Tuesday, when I saw Serge Ibaka guarding Dirk, I knew OKC had a problem on their hands.  Forget Ibaka not being able to guard Dirk vertically on his jumper (because nobody can), but laterally Ibaka could not stay in front of him.  In turn, Dirk was able to blow by him early for layups and get fouled in the lane.  And that’s not to take away from Ibaka, who’s another near 7-footer that’s athletic as all hell (remember how he wowed us in the dunk contest with his agility and leaping ability), and is a solid defender (leads 2011 playoffs in blocks).  But when it comes to side to side footwork and staying in front of a wing player whose jumper demands respect and will also put it on the floor when you’re too close…Ibaka is not your man for the job.  As the game went on, Thunder coach Scott Brooks tried throwing 5 or 6 different defenders at Dirk, but by that time the beast had already grown larger than life.  The Thunder also made the mistake of letting him catch the ball in good position while on his favorite side of the floor (the left side if your under the hoop facing half court).  If you look at Dirk’s shot chart from Tuesday, of his 15 field goal attempts, 12 of them were inside the paint or on his favorite/strong side.  If the Thunder can make the hardest part of Dirk’s offensive possessions before he ever catches the ball, while limiting his touches on his strong side, the Thunder will have a chance to win this series.  Despite Dirk going nuts, OKC still had a shot to win coming down the stretch of game 1.  Huge win for the Mavs, but I think we’ll see 6 more games between the two teams.

Marley Town

When host of the “Noe Show” Brian Noe asked me to host his show this Friday May 13th, I was a wee-bit dissapointed to tell him I was going to Jamaica.  Dissapointed to go to Jamaica?  Sounds like a statement that should be banned from the English language.  As much as I’ve been looking forward to another oppurtunity to hop on ESPN radio, the thought of sun, sand, and see-through water is pretty powerful.  I don’t know much about where I’m going besides that the climate/location is God’s idea of a Hydroponics lab, and that if I wander too far off the resort my organs will proabably be sold on the black market within a few hours.  If you don’t see a post by middle of next week (May 17/18), it’s been real. 

Bad Bynum

When I first heard play-by-play caller Mike Tirico refer to Andrew Bynum’s flagrant foul on JJ Barea as “One of the biggest bush league things I’ve ever seen” I thought he was using hyperbole for effect.  After watching the replays over and over, I stand corrected.  Bynum was handed a 5 game suspension, with a steep fine of over a half million bucks (Partly because he went G-unit and yanked his shirt off in front of the sold out crowd in case there was any doubt that “yea, I just did that”).  But on Tuesday I heard it being discussed on national radio how this was the way the NBA used to be.  The glory days.  The days when Bill Laimbeer would truck stick you because you even thought about coming in the lane, Rick Mahorn would sharpen his elbows and Kevin McHale tried decapitating Kurt Rambis.  I heard phrases like, “This was par for the course” when referring to Bynum’s foul in connection with the 70’s and 80’s.  I’m struggling to understand rationalizing Bynum’s foul.  You can plug what Bynum did into any era and it’s a flagrant foul.  The game used to be rougher?  Tougher?  Ok…and?  Those reckless plays from the hard-nosed legends I named were equally flagrant then as they are now.  None of it has anything to do with basketball.  If that happens at the local park, expect fireworks.  And furthermore, the league is lucky that Dallas isn’t a short fused team because that could have gotten ugly.  Barea’s teammates stood around like, “Damn, that looked like it hurt.”  You commit a foul like that on a teammate of KG, Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Kenyon Martin, or a handful of others and David Stern’s playing Dr. Damage Control.  At the end of the day Bynum made a horrendous decision that literally brought zero positives to the table.  The worst part for me is I went back and looked at his other flagrant fouls and they all look similar.  Forearm extended, intentional shiver, no play on the ball.  Check out the 3 videos below.  Deja Vu for Bynum.

Is it just me…

One of my favorite games that has no beginning or ending is the look-alike game.  You see a guy pumping gas and you say to your buddy, “who’s that _____?”  And you fill in the blank with a look-alike.  Someone funny-looking on TV or movies, an obscure name from high school, or pretty much anyone you can think of who even half way looks like your target.  Hit it right on the head and you have a good laugh.  The other day I’m watching the Chicago Bulls and see backup center Omer Asik on the bench and call out Judge Reinhold from Beverly Hills Cop.  Boom.  You can be the overall “judge” for this comparison, and a few other athletes that came to mind.

You’re telling me that if I put a jersey on The Predator you’d be able to tell the difference between it and Marquis Daniels?  I don’t believe you.  Predator is one of the baddest creatures to ever hunt.  I’d imagine our alien friend would have great success on the hardwood.  Superior quickness and jumping ability sets Predator apart.  The thermal vision wouldn’t help his case when catching or dribbling the ball, but his laser-shooting capability would come in handy at the park or any other street ball setting.  Marquis Daniels is the last of the Predator species known to pro sports.  It was once thought that Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks had a direct blood link to the Predator, but it was later discovered his ties were with another alien species you’ll see below…

Remember Popeye Jones from the Washington Wizards?  If you’re not sure, you haven’t seen Popeye.  Anyone who’s ever laid eyes on this monster has that impression forever burned into memory.  Listen, I’m not making fun of Pop in a mean-spirited way, genetics happen…But there’s genetics, and then there’s Popeye.  Popeye’s name is extremely fitting because when you first see him, your eye’s literally pop open as if less eye lid will improve what you’ve seen.  Dude’s mother even has a tough time with birth ownership.  The look-alike is easy.  Sloth from the 1985 film ‘The Goonies.’  “HEYY YOU GUYS!”

At first I was under the impression that running back Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks began playing football after he shot several seasons playing the role of Worf from Star Trek.  Only recently did I come to find out that these two men are not one.  Marshawn was born in 1986 in Oakland, California, where as Worf was born in 2340 on the Klingon’s home planet.  The birth date for Worf is a bit confusing, and the actual location didn’t show up on my planetarium, but I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if Worf is the father of Lynch.  Just saying.

Those who’ve watched any amount of basketball know Chris Kaman.  The guy’s got some game for sure.  And although his play from 15 feet and in is pretty smooth, his appearance can only be correlated to either 1 of 2 things.  The first is a Crystal Meth addict, and the second is a Wookie from Star Wars.  Kaman lacks the overall hair to be officially linked with Chubaka, but the bone structure says otherwise.  But at the end of the day, the sagging shoulders, sunken eyes, and jacked up jaw says Meth Head.  You call it.

His birth certificate says he’s from Barcelona Spain…but then again Danny Almonte’s birth certificate also said he was 12.  I looked hard and deep (pause) into the subject and found that Pau Gasol’s original place of birth was on the African plains, the native land of the Ostrich.  The correlation breakthrough came when I discovered that the Ostrich lays the largest eggs of any living bird, and Pau Gasol laid the largest egg in the 2011 playoffs of any living All-Star.  When times got really tough in 2011, Gasol could be found burying his head in the sand, just like his ancestors before him.  It was right under my nose/beak the entire time.