CRISTAL ANNIVERSARY

because traditional anniversary gifts only go up to 60 years, i had to create my own special gift to give all ten of you loyal readers. guess what? IT'S A BLOG POST!

you can drop the balloons now.

for the 100th post spectacular (yes there are 100 according to blogger, and no i have not done the research myself) i had it in my head to do a kind of greatest hits, in which i would pull top-flight and also really awful quotes and predictions from the previous 99 posts (which admittedly include one post that's entirely video and one post that's entirely pictures of chris bosh next to raptors--which also doubles as the only post made by the ethereal pmac.) HOWEVER, that would be a lot of work, and something that i want somebody else to do for me. so: anyone that wants to dig through the lamar blogom back catalogue and find some gems and disasters is welcome to do so. and i will post your findings giving you full or no credit.

also, as we reach the 100th post i'd like to place a call out for tee designs. if you have any skill at all with drawing things or know somebody that does, drop me a line of some kind and we'll talk.

and as a third item, tomorrow will begin the semi-official countdown to october 30th during which i will profile every single national basketball association team. even the celtics again! rejoice.

the most lamar blogom nba players, with accompanying paragraphs:

10. eddie griffin

now that he's gone he's cemented this spot possibly for posterity. his aura and ability will be missed sorely in the association. i wanted desperately to see him succeed at basketball. to see eddie griffin rollicking down the lane on a steve nash- or jason kidd- or even chris paul-led break would have been a joy to see, especially considering that in doing so he would have beaten a lifetime of serious psychological problems. yeah, i know he was on the nets. and i wish he was on my hometown lakers so i could have insane fights with the people bashing him which would result in me never talking to the troubled eddie griffin bashers.

9. leandro barbosa

he is a one-stop shop for all your scoring needs. blessed with a deadly outside shot and intense quickness, he is one of my favorite players to watch--provided he's not playing against the hometown lakers. whenever anything happens and he is on the court, he can affect the game just with his speed. if there is a defensive rebound, you can count on him being the first one down the floor with his vaguely hunched-over gait. the way he scores, in such a naturalistic way based ONLY on his speed and shooting ability as opposed to the virtuosity of kobe bean or melo anthony or agent zero is a pretty sight to behold. even though he can't make the suns run like his white running mate can, he can score in bunches. (except when kobe is locking him down.)

8. stephon marbury

WELL he didn't used to be one of the most lamar blogom players. but as has probably been said in countless teen movies: one summer can definitely change everything. let me take that bacl; i have written one fairly angry post defending him in the wake of some neophytes attending a summer camp at northwestern bashing him. but when he starts doing borderline crazy interviews during which he almost answers his cell phone, he has a spot on my list. combine that with $15 shoes THAT HE WEARS ON THE COURT and a newfound win-or-die attitude: "i shoot to win because i shoot to win," that should result in at least a 45-win team when combined with z-bo and some other offensive threats. i look forward to how his newfound freewheeling attitude will translate to the court. will he become the best pg in the nba, like he once claimed?

7. josh smith

j-smoove is seriously awesome. he has bounce for literally days. athleticism for weeks. and also he's really cool to play with in nba 2k7. if you think that doesn't translate into somebody being more lamar blogom, you just don't know lamar blogom. he's really really really hard to see play because let's face it: the hawks just are not on national tv. and also he plays the lakers maybe twice per year so it's not like he's even on local tv. so my pretty much only exposure to j-smoove is through the xbox 360. but he's so awesome to play with in video form that i have a perhaps unhealthily high idea of his abilities. also: he was the starting pf on the first lamar blogom team. well, the only lamar blogom team. so there's that.

6. dwight howard

now if you thought j-smoove had bounce, you have not seen this manchild in action. he can jump more than any 7-footer that i have seen play live basketball, with the possibly exception of ryan hollins who can apparently dunk off of two feet from the damn free throw line. there's sometime rawly appealing about his game. he does not have a wee bit of polish. literally if he was any skinnier he would be a total bust along the lines of stromile swift. shit, he might be the utopian vision of what stro swift could have been with like 100 extra pounds of pure horse muscle. i think that i'm actually going to hate him once he acquires some subtlety to the way he plays basketball. or maybe it could be a kind of fatherly affection; i've seen my little baby all growed up and now he's dominating fools both with his power and with his technique.

5. baron davis

there is literally nothing on the basketball court that he cannot do. he can score it inside and out, dunk on andrei kirilenko with a vengeance that leaves beatrix kiddo looking like a limp-wristed teenybopper fawning over john mayer. his bullet-fedora'd championing of the high octane warriors through the playoff made him a personal hero of mine and a large percentage of nba fans. i also love him for his limitations. his physical health is in constant doubt every time he puts sneaker to hardwood. shit, he couldn't even practice during the playoff run. but when he's on the court and not crippling himself with a propensity for 3 chucking he can ball, straight up and down. even if he's not really a pure point, he can score among the best of them and also handle a team fairly competently. nellieball freaks unite.

4. steve nash

goddamn. even though i resent him every time he plays against the lakers, which is quite a lot, he is a maestro on the basketball court. to this day, one of my favorite performances of all time is his absolute dismantling of the cavs on national television. literally every time he ran down the court--no longer brushing his traditional bangs out of his eyes--something fairly magical was about to happen. whether he would shake amare free for a sickening, back breaking dunk or finding matrix in the corner for a wide-open 3, he did so with an artistic flair. he has a freewheeling style with no fear of turning over the rock and so makes passes that don't even seem remotely logical when they are first generated. however, upon their completion, they are some of the most beautiful things you will see on the basketball court.

3. gilbert AgentZero arenas

agent zero is stephon marbury and baron davis combined and taken to dizzying heights. everything that i've said about them applies doubly to the erstwhile hibachi. he makes outlandish predictions, storms away from game winning shots midflight scowling at the opposing bench, and takes money from his teammates in perhaps unreasonable shooting contests. even during a "serious" event like the 3-point shootout, he's still playing the clown and shooting threes with one damn hand. he's a gifted scorer that can even kind of distribute the rock on occasion if he wants to as evidenced by his teammates' scoring averages. he's probably the second best scorer in the league behind the second player on the list:

2. kobe bean bryant

what can i say about kobe that hasn't already been said about zeus? he's a god among men, can throw lightning bolts, and has a history of troubling sexual behavior. zeus turned himself into a goose, kobe banged a white girl in a colorado hotel. he was the subject of the first ever lamar blogom post, which actually came before the official inception of lamar blogom. in essence, he could be described as responsible for the creation of this blog. i long for the day when he can be paired with a player that will accentuate his talents and bring him once again to the glory that is the larry o'brien trophy. he might never reach those hallowed halls again, but lord willin by the time he retires he will have at least 2 mvps, a few more finals appearances, and the recognition of everyone as one of the top 3 most gifted scorers ever to play basketball.

1. lamar odom

well, he's the namesake. so maybe he should be disqualified. but that's not how i roll. he literally embodies everything about this blog. he is multitalented: he can score it, pass it, rebound it, and--judging by his earlier career--smoke it too. i love him because he has never been on a true winner. i love him because he might never have that opportunity. and i love him because he has the potential to be a truly good player. he was on pace to become an all-star in the incredibly crowded western conference forward rotation. then he messed up his shoulder and the lakers season went into the toilet. people forget this, but he could have made the lakers into a semi-special team could he and every other injured player stayed healthy. there's always next season.

bonus feature: chocolate thunder