Lamar Blogom

what the hell is going on in cleveland?

2009-11-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

I know that this isn't exactly the first of what is about to become a raging flood of "What's wrong with the LeBrons?" but I figured I would give it a shot anyways. Keep in mind that the term "struggling" is relative: they just lost a 3 game win streak by one point to a solid Bulls team featuring the best second-year guard of a stacked draft class after 'Bron was debatably fouled going to the bucket on the last play of the game. Sure, it's football out there and he really should have finished stronger than that over Joakim freaking Noah, but whatever, they lost.

What we're seeing with the Cavs is indicative of the direction of the league as a whole: they're being royally screwed by Mike Brown's insistence on playing two-and-a-half non-shooters on the floor together for most of the game. Varejao is a nice defensive player, Big Z needs some burn and can step out to around 17 feet without losing *too* much accuracy, Shaq is Shaq, and LeBron is the greatest of all time (and should always be on the court except when he needs to step out into Earth's yellow sun to recharge his energy), but playing three of them together is an open letter imploring the defense to pack three guys into the paint and dare Mo Williams to take the game over. Why is this problematic?

So far the Cavs have seen their FG% (.468 to .436) and PPG (100.3 to 93.5) drop off a cliff while seemingly doing nothing but improve their team in the offseason (Moon, Parker, and Shaq) and coming off a Coach of the Year season for Mike Brown. Although their defense has improved by about two points per game, this is a far cry from the Cavs team last year that beat opponents so viciously that LeBron could routinely sit out the fourth quarter of games and basically act like black Scalabrine. Anecdotally the answer seems pretty obvious: Shaq needs to go.

Unlike his first season in Miami, when the Big Fella opened driving lanes for Wade and flew around the basket like a man possessed (remember that he garnered serious MVP consideration at the time because he was trying so hard to stick it to Kobe and the Lakers for trading him and had gotten off his fat ass and actually conditioned during the offseason--does this come off as bitter?), he's been the cheeseburger in the Cavs' arteries so far this season. Why? Well, to begin with in Miami he played in the frontcourt alongside Udonis Haslem (everyone forgets this now but the Wade/Salvatore's superhuman effort in the '06 finals would have gone for shit if Haslem wasn't making Dirk pay every time he cheated onto Wade or Shaq), who defenses had to at least respect out to the midrange, and who had the athleticism to guard quicker 4s. Debatably: Z has the same range as Udonis but his natural position is closer to the basket, and if you've seen anything this season, you've seen how ridiculous and awful the Ilgauskas-Shaq pairing has been this season.

(Note to the league: pairing two immobile big men NO LONGER WORKS. There's a reason the Knicks were so execrable with Curry and Randolph on the court, and why Portland's ridiculous Oden/Pryzbilla experiment in the playoffs last year culminated in a first round exit.)

So: a whole lot of complaining so far. Here's what needs to get done: STOP TRYING TO LIVE IN THE 90s, MIKE. I know that Mike Brown just lost his offensive coordinator to a division rival, and grew as a coach in the Spurs system when they were destroying the league behind the twin towers of Robinson and Duncan, but show some freaking imagination, please. I'm 95% sure Mike Brown just saw Clueless and wants to talk about "that Alicia Silverstone" with the training staff. Brown should slide LeBron up to the 4, insert Moon into the starting lineup over Varejao, play Shaq and Z in alternating minutes, and insert Varejao when they're really desperate for some D/rebounding/insane Sideshow Bob-style flopping, and basically dare every other team in the league to cover LeBron with their 4. How many 4s can handle his quickness and athleticism? For my money the list starts and stops with KG two years ago, and maybe Odom or Chuck Hayes can funnel him into the center if he's feeling sprightly.

This has two benefits. First: it's going to make the opponent either decide to let LeBron shred them offensively and hope they can make some of it up by punishing him down low (unlikely since he's bigger than half the 4s in the league, and it's rarer and rarer that teams play a back-to-the-basket scorer at that position) or they throw up their hands and play the matchups by inserting two smaller forwards into the game. At this point, the Cavs would rejoice because it means that Shaq and LeBron can now totally control the glass AND because now the other team doesn't have two huge bodies to throw onto Shaq down low. Want to make the Big Fella happy? Let him play one on one the whole game while he's surrounded with shooters and a guard in a linebacker's body. That's the approach Phoenix took last season when Gentry took over, and that resulted in one of the greatest offenses of all time.

Now I'm betting the Cavs snap out of their relative funk in time to start putting together some wins now that Delonte's back (another "what's wrong with the Cavs?" theory is that Delonte handled much of the offense while Mo and Bron were on the bench and they missed his absence more than many realized), but I think that if they even want to sniff last season's ascendancy they're going to have to take some semi-radical steps towards the King's positional redefinition. Shit, if it worked for me in NBA 2k9, it's GOTTA work in real life.

2009-11-05T15:07:00.000-08:00

Newly married and better than ever

not so great expectations

2007-11-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

well the season is underway and hs brought with it the weirdness that we can expect from the nba. the warriors, bulls, wizards, AND heat have combined for as many wins as the new orleans hornets. now, chris paul is pretty nice and shaq is five shades of washed up, but come ON. this time of year is typically odd though; the bulls literally always suck to open the season and every year there are articles talking about how they're quitting on skiles, or they're in some kind of mysterious decline. please relax america. the bulls will be fine. after the all-star break there will be a million and one articles about how the bulls have turned it around, how they're the hottest team in the league, scott skiles is a genius &c. not to say that i support skiles in any way, shape, or form; i think he's a nazi asshole that has no idea how to run an offense or even to hire someone that does know how to run an offense. that being said, the man can flat out coach defense like it's nobody's business. and that shit is valuable in this league.

(p.s. watch out for tom thibodeau, the lead celtics assistant to get a job next year. by all accounts he's the one behind both the suffocating D the rockets had this year AND the celtics dominance on the defensive end this year.)

speaking of the celtics, they're pretty much obscene. kg is playing like the mvp that we all know he should be yearly. honestly, he kind of scares the shit out of me. he's like a convict let out right into amsterdam or something with $1 million in his bank account. he probably sits at home giggling maniacly rubbing his hands together while the five hookers he's hired are doing blow from the mountain he has covering his dining room table. i realize that i've turned kg into scarface, but at this point he's about five wins in a row away from entering a state of nirvana so profound that he refuses to leave his bed. so my point is the celtics should start sucking soon or else he's going to be way too blissed out to even play basketball. or maybe he just drunk dials kevin mchale all the time and taunts him.

it's kind of gratifying to see a hyped up team of superstars come together so sublimely, especially in boston. there are serious questions in my mind as to whether the celtics or pats will be the first to lose. but seriously, it's good to be able to hate the celtics again is my main concern. combine that with a possible lakers resurgence and you have a pretty solid matchup down the road. more about the lakers tomorrow.

FREE KOBE

2007-10-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

first of all, you can stop holding your breath for more team previews. they're not happening. the spurs are going to win it all, the celtics will capture our imagination with the prospect of what a bunch of really well compensated people can do when combined with slightly less well compensated people and a borderline incompetent coach.

"she don't believe in shooting stars but she believe in shoes and cars."
that line applies to kobe pretty perfectly. in this metaphor, he is the nonspecific "she" and "shoes and cars" are wins and championships. but you knew that already. honestly, the lakers are kind of fucked beyond all repair as far as i can see. they aren't terrifically good at defense and they seriously fell apart down the stretch once they stopped playing 80% of their games at home and people started getting injured. accepted: the injuries could have something to do with all the bed-shitting that went on later in the season. not accepted: that they were any better than a 45-win team.

so kobe is trapped in this kind of untenable situation with an absolutely fucked decision making hierarchy (apparently mitch kupchak was ready to pull the trigger to get j-kidd but JIM buss, the son of JERRY buss who is apparently soft in the head regarding andrew bynum [jim, not jerry] blocked the deal from going through because of the aforementioned mancrush. not to say that bynum won't become a fantastic nba center, but if getting the second best pg in basketball is your option and it doubles as a way to keep the best player in the lig happy, then you have to kind of do that.) he's being a little petulant with his trade demands, &c. but i think it's a safe bet that he won't actively tank like certain players/teams to get traded but he might. the point is that the last banner has been hung in LA for probably a long time and he's woken up to that fact, especially since the last few drafts have been potential-focused. crittenton and farmar and bynum will all be good pros and turiaf already is one, but those are players that require patience to pan out.

kobe wants to win NOW, preferably in chicago where he can show people that FUCK JORDAN and he's the best ever. i hope he does. i hope he gets traded to a really great situation and wins championships for the rest of his career. it would be a travesty to throw away the rest of his career on a perpetually average team that's built by nincompoops. the lakes are all set to be a very average team for the next decade unless bynum becomes a monster--WHICH COULD HAPPEN given a few more years. but since kobe wants to win now, he should go ahead. or the lakers should trade for andre iguodala and let him become exactly scottie pippen.

actually, fuck kobe. he should stick around through the tough times too. the lakers stood by him when he "raped" a girl, he should stick around for a few seasons until bynum sees his potential realized. shit, maybe they can get lucky with crittenton, or radmanovic could turn into a good player in phil's offense, or they can magically get andrei kirilenko (who's a better fit for this team than odom anyways) for lamar odom, and then they would be real live contenders. just because lebron had a videogames season against some subpar competition he wants to jump ship? shit kobe, ever heard of a challenge? honestly, you can PUNCH STEVE KERR LIKE MJ DID and that shit will be ok. you're that good, and maybe you need to knock down sasha vujacic so he can start hitting jumpers or just bounce back to europe.

i love kobe, i love watching him play, and i hope he can work out his shit and stick around to watch the lakes become good again. but if he can't, then bite a dick and get out of my life. i'll still watch all his games though.

Orlando Magic team preview

2007-10-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

the orlando magic made THE high profile acquisition of the offseason when they paid what some would consider silly money to rashard lewis. he gives some scoring punch to a team that was sorely lacking perimeter offense before the signing. but the magic counteracted that one positive move with a plethora of offseason silliness that could negate the effectiveness of their addition entirely. want some evidence? just check out espn's proposed depth chart for your orlando magic:

jameer nelson: no problem there. a bit of a shoot-first point guard that seems to have an issue actually seeing his open teammates and hitting them with the rock, but he's a solid nba player.
hedo turkoglu: now, let's ignore the fact that he's 6'10" for a second and look at his game. he likes to spot up and shoot, is a poor rebounder for his size, doesn't play good defense, and can't bang in the low post. well, that would be fine if the magic didn't sign a slightly better version of him to a $110 million contract. add into that the fact that he's 6'10" and he can't even keep up with small forwards and if the magic really start him at sg there are going to be serious defensive issues. now, normally a team would just look down its depth chart and find someone else suitable, but their numbers 2-4 options are keyon dooling--who sucks--jj redick--who might not suck, but didn't do ANYTHING when he played last year--and trevor ariza--who is much more suited to playing sf. now, their best option seems to be redick, but are they really prepared to have a total of zero people that play perimiter defense in their starting lineup?
rashard lewis: he's a terrific shooter that can't rebound or play defense to save his life. he was just signed to one of the richest contracts in nba history. the thing that makes the most sense is to play him at the 4, get a couple of jumping jacks who can hit threes for the 2 and 3 and run until somebody passes out. i get the feeling the magic won't do that because their point guard can't for one, and because their management sucks for two.
dwight howard: he's quite simply a beast. pretty much uncontainable on the blocks when he can showcase his strength and also possessed of bounce for literal days--observe his dunk contest sticker dunk and also the picture of him putting his chin at rim level. he's not really a guy you can throw the ball into just yet, but given a few more years or a more creative point guard/head coach and there's no reason to think he can't be the young, healthy amare.
adonal foyle: league leader in thoughtful poetry, horrendous contracts, and overall darkness. there's no way he should be starting for an nba team. but then the mavs went to the finals with a tag team of diop and dampier so i guess anything is possible.

i know people are all hot-and-bothered about stan van gundy being the head coach, but he was working with championship level talent in miami and wasn't doing all that great. quite simply, they will not be able to overcome their conspicuous lack of anybody that can even pretend to play the 2 and will probably find themselves on the outside of the playoffs looking in once again.

Philadelphia 76ers team preview

2007-10-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

well now that AI is gone the real healing can begin. it's weird that in the summer after they traded the face of the franchise to make a move towards younger, better players they made no real concerted effort to bring people in to help the rebuilding effort. now, call me crazy, but andre miller is not the ideal player around which to build your team. or even to have on your team when you're rebuilding.

he's a nice player; a point that can push the rock in transition and hit the open man and who doesn't dominate the ball like his predecessor, but he's old or getting there. how much longer will he be able to maintain even his present level of effectiveness? the smart money is on about 1-2 more years before he starts to hit a serious wall when he reaches about age 32 or 33.

iggy, or the second AI, is not exactly the type of person that i want to build my empire around either. he's a good finisher with a moderately effective offensive game that's also a lockdown defender. really nice player that could be fantastic in a few years, but he's the type of person you throw next to steve nash and jason kidd and watch him morph into richard jefferson but better, not the guy you throw out there and expect him to get buckets for you nightly. sure, he'll do it for a while, but he's more of a complimentary than a franchise player. ironically, iverson could have been a good mate for him, but ivey grew up so much without anyone else viable on offense that he ignored what he had.

at this point, the upside for iggy is that he turns into scottie pippen. by that i mean that's his high cieling that he would have to practically take a helicopter to, but that's who he could become. maybe a pairing with kobe makes some degree of sense, but unless the lakers trade bynum and their next 1,000,000 first rounders i don't see anything like that happening.

as is, the 6ers will putter along at the bottom half of the atlantic and maybe score some high draft picks in the next few years, but with billy king running the show i have a feeling we'll see an extension along the lines of willie greens' before we see the 76ers win another atlantic division championship. more so than any other team, i think they're just boned.

Phoenix Suns team preview

2007-10-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

this is going to be hard, since pmac is perhaps the world's biggest suns fan. but let me say that until the suns acquire a LOT more depth--and stop relying so much on their top 7--there is not an nba championship on their horizon. understand that saying that is drawing a little piece out of my soul; the suns were part of the kindling that combined to create the fire that is my passion for the association. steve nash was a revelation to all of us when he first stepped on the court for PHX and continues to be whenever he tosses a wraparound pass that hits STAT in the breadbasket.

before we get too carried away with how awesome the suns are--and they're awesome and cool and fun and i love watching them--they didn't do shit to improve themselves this offseason. sure, grant hill and alando tucker are nice players but how many games will hill play? 30? 40? 50? unless he seriously bucks a trend and keeps his knees and ankles healthy for the entire season, then the suns will again be in the position of relying on very few players to produce a lot. their rotation shakes down to: amare, diaw, marion, nash, raja, leandrinho, hill, and maybe some combination of tucker, skinner, or dj strawberry if he pulls his shit together.

basically their championship hopes rest on the fact that MAYBE marcus banks finds the ability to spell nash for long stretches of time and MAYBE alando tucker turns into someone that can play 25 minutes a game to rest hill for the playoffs and MAYBE diaw regains his 2005-6 form and can give them a viable option off the bench for their front court and MAYBE they avoid the injury bug for another season. now that's a lot of maybes, and even if everything falls into place for them and d'antoni can work a 9-man rotation without stepping on anyone's toes and maintaining effectiveness for the entire season then they have a shot.

i almost feel like they would be better off sacrificing some wins for greater playoff aptitude. if they can bring everyone into the playoffs rested and healthy, wouldn't they be better off winning only 50 games and coming in as the fourth seed? nobody in the pacific division will even smell 50 wins unless kobe discovers the technology necessary to clone himself so he can play all five spots on the floor or boom dizzle stays healthy long enough for the warriors to run and gun their way there. that being said, why not sacrifice a few games so the chief characters have the legs for the ones that count?

the spurs operate on a similar principle; they always start slow because they regulate minutes and pop is willing to work deep deep into his bench even if it is not playing particularly well. it costs them some regular season games to be sure, but those banners hang forever and they do not list regular season record on them.

my thinking is the suns cop 60 wins again, run into a buzzsaw spurs team in the western conference finals and make the series close and entertaining, but ultimately fall short again. at some point, either sarver is going to have to pay the luxury tax or steve kerr will have to do some seriously shady trades to pull them over the hump. as it is, they need about 1-2 more quality players and d'antoni has to commit to playing them even at the expense of a few wins in december.

Portland Trail Blazers team preview

2007-10-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

the greg oden saga could turn out to make portland into a superpower if he recovers fully. picture this: if they finish with the worst record in the western conference (which is very possible since they lost their best player from last year for channing frye, who is almost exactly the same player as lamarcus aldrige, minus about 15% effectiveness)--and barring the timberwolves nobody can claim to challenge them for potential to absolutely suck for the entire season--then they could end up with a top-5 pick to pair with oden, aldrige, brandon roy, and whomever else. yes, you heard me right.

o.j. mayo or derrick rose or some other sickeningly good player could be playing with that group. and that, my friends, equals multiple western conference championships down the road so long as they're not coached by a total monkey (or del harris who might make the monkey look pretty damn good.)

(random del harris side note: his kid used to play in the same rec league i was in except a few years younger than me. and the kids mom used to coach the team and del would always be sitting on the parents side of the gym watching the team. this was when he was unemployed by the lakers or any other organization, and about two years after winning coach of the year. and i always wondered: why not take over your kid's team? the other kids would get to say they got coached by the fucking coach of the year at about 8 years of age and you could prove that you weren't such a chode after all. but then that might have led to some seriously damaged self-confidence should your team ever lose a game. but then again, the five minute substitution rules might have suited del because, hey, that's what he did in the NBA anyways. also, mitch kupchak is pretty much always watching his kid play basketball too at the same rec center.)

but as for this year, the blazers are almost completely boned in the behind. where is the offense going to come from on this team? last year they relied on tossing the ball into crazy zach randolph on the low block. and while his sanity has been questioned (my favorite example of this is when in a glowing espn the magazine article, his high school coach said something to the effect of: "any day that i open the paper and i don't read that zach is in jail i thank god" really a ringing endorsement if you axe me) his ability to score in the low block never has. pretty much they could be guarandamnteed that he would at the very least draw a double team and toss it out to roy who would knock down a jumper or whatever. now, they have no legit post threat and no real perimiter scoring outside of roy. don't give me any guff about aldrige or frye as one or the other will have to be matched up on a center who will absolutely manhandle them on both ends of the floor and neither had much of a back to the basket game either.

as it is, maybe maybe maybe martell webster or travis outlaw will step up to give some scoring punch but given their past, we can consider that highly unlikely. also: they were among the hardest team to watch last season and this season they're also devoid of any compelling reason to turn in save to watch nate mcmillan cry into his hands as they lose 18-straight.

they literally personify "wait till next year." and oh, what a next year it will be.

Wayne and Santana In '08...I Can't Feel My Face

2007-09-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

Sacramento Kings team preview

2007-09-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

the kings are highlighted by one wildly overrated player, two mildly overrated players, and one insanely underrated player. you can choose from this list:

mike bibby

ron artest

brad miller

kevin martin

i guess everyone realizes how ridiculously bad brad miller has gotten over these past few years; he used to be a passing wizard with a decent shooting touch and a very succesful technical post game. he was, however, hamstrung by his lack of athleticism and general whiteness. the kings have kind of replicated his skills--or lack thereof--by nabbing aaron gray, another slow white dude that has all the hops of a bulldog.

kevin martin, on the other hand, scores for literal days despite the goofiest looking j this side of the matrix. he shoots a silly percentage, doesn't dominate the ball, and is almost impossible to double team because he's so quick once he gets his paws on it. he's exactly the type of player people love when they're talking about a second option because he can score without taking the high volume of shots that someone like flip murray or earl boykins needs.

that's really valuable because of the nominal top-2 options on the kings. the ron artest-mike bibby tandem could be the single most overrated in basketball. until people realize that bibby was basically a creation of rick adelman and benefitted by having a sickeningly good supporting cast, he will continue to confuse defenders only with his ethnicity and not with any kind of basketball moves. (in a serious note, what the hell is he exactly? his dad is kind of black. kind of.)

ron ron, who was the subject of a pretty admiring post over here a while back, has devolved into a kind of talented sinkhole where he doesn't realize that he might not want to take awful, contested shots every time down the court. maybe if he stuck to his strengths--defending every position and knocking down jumpers when walmart (that's what we're calling kevin martin since kmart has been taken by kenyon) and mike "black?" bibby aren't getting to the basket.

shit, if theus can get everyone to do that, they could have the ingredients necessary for a solid team that barely misses the playoffs. maybe if he does that and squeezes a good season out of the miller/gray whiteness tandem they could sneak into the 8th spot but beyond that i don't know. also, he's imposing a curfew. yeah, right.

San Antonio Spurs team preview

2007-09-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

i used to really hate vanilla ice cream. it was bland and stupid and white, and it wasn't chocolate goddamnit. eventually--after i discovered the wonders of pie--vanilla ice cream grew on me like a creeper vine on a wooden trellis. pie and vanilla ice cream are delicious together; pie and chocolate or strawberry or rocky road? fuck that. it's gross, and you know what i mean.

now, ask yourselves why i would start a team preview with a talk about vanilla ice cream? because it's the spurs, that's why. the most boring team possibly ever. although let it be said that i do like myself some tony parker on occaision, mainly because he's my all-time favorite point guard in nba 2k7. other than him, what do you say?

this is a roster not designed to lend itself to superlatives.

tim duncan, the undisputed leader, is legendary for the fact that he's consistent on a level that's absolutely sickening. i'm not kidding. next time i see a 20/10/3 season from tim duncan i think i will empty the contents of my lunch into the nearest trash can or other receptacle. i'm joking, but only kind of.

the basic premise of the spurs as it has once been described is that they assemble a team of three good-great players and fill out the rest of the roster with people willing to run through a brick wall to win. that is an incredibly accurate portrait of the spurs as i know them, and explains why flight white has toiled away on the d-league team, unable to showcase his inSANE dunking skills to the largest audience imaginable.

but because flight isn't on the roster, the spurs will keep winning. there are no players that could reasonably called laconic on their roster. every single spur lives and dies by the bounce of the round ball. none of them have shoe deals, etc. etc. with the possible exception of tony parker, who is married to someone who will probably one day bang their teenaged gardener while tony's away at work.

the spurs will probably win the west again unless they somehow take a giant dump in the bed this year. bo-ring, but some people like it. if i could only find the damn pie.

prediction 60-22, t-1st in southwest division

Seattle SuperSonics team preview

2007-09-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

this might be mistitled by the end of the next season. i'm kind of mixed about whether or not i give a shit that the sonics move to oklahoma (probably not.) but the handling of the potential move by supersonics ownership is shadier than a giant umbrella designed to block out the sun. honestly, i cannot fathom the thought process that would incite any person in power to suggest that the motivation for buying the team in the first place was moving it. that's harebrained along the lines of videotaping your former defensive coordinators signals to gain an advantage when you just spent the entire offseason making your team so you don't have to do that shit.

let's focus on the positve: kevin durant, ya dig? pmac got on somebody else's sidekick to specifically tell me that he's "straight lanky." i can think of no better adjective to describe the ethereal kevin durant. he literally seems like a ghost spider crawling around the court, scoring from all sections. imagine a 6'9" spider with serious scoring ability and there you have kevin durant. i dare you to have a better explanation for him than that.

no he is not tmac+kg. he has tmac's weird intensity that he maintains despite the fact that he's basically at the whim of a zephyr that flies into the stadium. he reminds me a little bit of young kobe only way better at age in that he's just this waifish kid that fronts like he can score, etc. with the big boys. like kobe, i'm sure that arrogance--because what is it other than arrogance inspires that kind of confidence--is completely and totally justified. but as a result don't expect him to be putting too many banners up wherever the sonics are playing; players like him are notoriously hard to win with. kobe could be seen as the best example of that player type, and yes he does have those 3 championships, he won them when he was playing with the best big man in the league at that time.

weirdly these sonics seem a little like a natal version of the bulls that won so many championships. obviously neither the stars nor the supporting cast are there yet, but kd is an ultragifted scorer, jeff green is a "winner" (whatever that means), and they even have the big ron harper guard in delonte west. all they're missing is phil jackson and about 5 years of maturity for kd and jg.

all of their oozing potential will not translate into any performance at all this year, unfortunately. so expect a lot of long faces in and around seattle while durant finds his way into the lig. maybe a ROY is in store for him though, as he figures to be their number 1 scoring threat this season.

prediction 34-48, 4th in northwest division

Toronto Raptors season preview

2007-09-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

let me say before i say anything else that sam mitchell looks like a black muslim leader of the fait (priest? minister? imam?) at this point, he should just change his name to sam x and get the damn thing over with. but he probably won't. just another daily frustration for lamar blogom.
despite the fact that they're lead by a person who appears to be about 30 years late to a black panthers rally, the raps are the most international team in the nba probably (i was too lazy to actually count the number of players from other countries.) suffice to say: they hail from all over the globe, plus they play in a city that is not in america.

trivia time: toronto is in a country called "canada." they talk with goofy accents there, say "eh" a lot, and their currency is something called the "loon."

the raptors are a top-flight offensive team despite or more probably because of the fact that they're mainly composed of european players. by mainly i mean at least 40%, which qualifies as a lot. their top 2 players are americans: bosh and ford, but all the rest are probably not welcome in certain parts of the south. come to think of it, the raptors are probably the KKKs most wanted franchise. it's a good thing that there's no team in alabama.

the raps play what is apparently an exciting brand of basketball higlighted by unselfish play and some pretty damn good passes. i would direct your attention to andrea bargnani's artful between the legs alley-oop bounce pass to chris bosh--which bosh botched--as evidence of that fact. that may have been the most confusing sentence of all time, and for that i am unapologetic. parse it yourself or just search for andrea bargnani pass on youtube and i'm sure your eyes will be opened like you just touched the obelisk.

bottom line is that the raps will probably be able to win the atlantic again despite the retooled celtics. we can pencil them in for another 45-win season on the strength of a bunch of euros and a player who literally looks like a raptor himself. i dare you to say that chris bosh is not positively reptillian in appearance, demeanor, and post moves. if chris bosh on the block does not scream gila monster to you, you have issues. just kidding. kind of.

prediction 45-37, first in atlantic division

Utah Jazz team preview

2007-09-04T00:45:00.000-07:00

the jazz were a bit of a suprise last year if you only consider their two most recent iterations and forget the grandmaster that is jerry sloan.
frankly, he looks like he was hit in the face with a folding chair at a 45 degree angle; his nose perfectly continues the slant of his forehead in an almost cartoonish way. also, he's a bit of a racist asshole in the same way that all old ball coaches are. i don't mean racist in the way that he hates black people, because come on, it's not like he can avoid them in his line of work. i mean racist like if you come to practice wearing a gold chain...

just don't come to jerry sloan's practice wearing a gold chain, aight?

bottom line, he knows how to make a basketball team win some damn games. even when his supposed "best player" (the awesomely nicknamed AK47) is shitting the bed like a 96-year-old never nervous pervis he still squeezes a 51 win season out of his team. not as though the rest of the team is a bunch of slouches--boozer has overcome his negative karma from pulling the rug from under the cavs blind owner, memo okhur has let his wife show him the way to clutch greatness, and deron williams is staking a claim as the next great power guard (baron davis, sit down.)

but maybe that collection doesn't win 51 games in any other hands than jerry sloan's gnarled old ones. say what you will about him, he knows how to coach basketball.

that's why they could be headed to a better season than their last. forget all the other western conference teams, the jazz have a legit chance to add 3-4 wins to their record, which none of the others can claim. in a season where most of the teams are idling or in reverse, the jazz could be moving forward simply because of the logical progression of their talent. deron williams will only get better with age, same goes for ronnie brewer who will hopefully take the 2 guard spot for his own.

pretty much every other team in the conference has stood still, and none of them boast the promising youngsters that the jazz do. especially after they lose derek fisher, who was secretly dead weight as a shooter that can't really shoot the rock at all.

mark them down to keep the 4 seed, especially with kirilenko having a possible rebound campaign and maybe morris almond stepping up as this year's under-the-radar rook.

prediction 53-29, first in northwest division

Washington Wizards team preview

2007-08-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

the wiz are home to the third most LB player and two ultratalented forwards gifted both at scoring and rebounding the basketball. however, they have around three people on the entire roster able to play good defense. off the top of my head: deshawn stephenson, caron butler, and maybe maybe etan thomas or brendan haywood depending on whether or not they ate their wheaties.

that lack of defense is the number one thing holding them back from postseason glory, even though their effortless approach to that half of the game could be construed as part of their larger design. less energy spent on defense by gil & co. means more time for them to run the "princeton offense." for the record, i don't care if eddie jordan is supposedly the grand wizard of the princeton offense, but what the wiz do in game has almost no relation to the cavalcade of backdoor passes that is the *true* princeton offense.

despite their poor defense, the wizards can count on a solid 70 ppg from their core of zero, caron, and 'twan. that dependence on three main scorers cost them pretty dearly last season when both gil and caron butler went out with injuries that forced twan into becoming a one man team. despite the fact that he was literally their only threat on offense, he still managed to get buckets against a supposedly excellent defensive cavs team. just goes to show you. something, but i'm not entirely sure what. even with hibachi and caron butler sidelined for much of the second half of the season, the wiz still only finished three games behind miami. if the big three can stay healthy for the entire season, there's no doubt that they will seal the southeast division crown and end miami's streak for a good few years or so.

awesome player: besides gil is definitely andray blatche. he has had legal and personal troubles in the past but he could have a breakout campaign if he focuses on basketball. 6'11" small forwards don't come along every day, especially young ones with dripping potential. some say he's the SF version of andrew bynum. some being me. i say that. and it's true. he'll be good some day, perhaps in the mold of gerald wallace, when he gets a consistent dose of playing time from a team committed to seeing how he fares if he's tossed out into the big wide world.

key: working voodoo magic to keep caron, gilbert, and antwan healthy for the entire season.

realistically they are not title contenders, but with enough craziness out east who knows? they could represent their conference in the finals come june.

prediction: 45-37, first in southeast division

CRISTAL ANNIVERSARY

2007-08-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

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

lamar blogom wonders...

2007-08-28T02:37:00.000-07:00

why is it that none of the teams i like can defend a goddamn pick and roll?

even as team usa rolls over mexico in a beating about 1/2 as dominant as expected, they display a frustrating--and continuing--weakness for one of the simplest and yet almost (apparently) impossible plays to guard: the pick and the roll. one would think that with a team full of hyperathletic strong men capable of killing with a stare alone that preventing a team composed of exactly 0 nba players (the notorious eduardo najera sat this one out) from running basically wild with a simple play would be easy.

not so apparently. it's fine that they coasted after a fairly obscene first quarter (92% on 2-pointers) but come ON. no way in any form of afterlife should mexico be able to drop 3 digits on the best american team in recent memory. it's imperative (and when i say this i mean that i would like it to happen since--come on--team usa is going to continue to strangle the competition up to and including the final game and earn a trip to beijing in 2008 which will hopefully result in a gold medal because mike k is not afraid of playing his young, athletic players like larry brown apparently was wayyy back in 2004) that they learn to keep their damn foot on the gas, at least for the first half. the second quarter should have been a time when the bigger, stronger, faster americans stepped on the neck of their mexican adversaries, not allowed themselves to be outscored by the mexicans.

it's a minor complaint. but minor complaints like leaving shooters open, inability to defend the pick and roll, and the continuing absence of any type of decent post-up game could come back to haunt america in the future.

p.s. i know that right now team usa doesn't really need a great post game from any of its players. but right now they're playing against street trash compared to the top-flight competition they'll get at the olympic level. no way will spain or france or greece be beaten without a reliable inside american scoring threat. yes, i realize that kobe is never cold in the sense that other players are cold. yes, i realize that they have carmelo and lebron should kobe break himself. and yes, i realize that there are more shooters on this team than there are coaches (almost.) but none of that will matter when they face a solid defensive team willing to chase them off the 3-point line and into some more difficult shots. either horseboy or STAT will have to step up and provide an inside game that isn't just fast-break bangtime if the americans want to win gold in beijing.

p.p.s. this is what eduardo najera would have looked like had he played against the americans. slightly different, but with the same idea.

eddie griffin rest in peace

2007-08-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

the man who was once caught watching porno whilst driving has now endured a second, much more serious incident involving a car. griffin, 25, was killed last week when his car and a train collided.
griffin was one of the great enigmas of the league. extremely athletic, with a good deal of length (not in a gay way, not that there's anything wrong with that,) and a liquid outside jumper. he never put his great physical gifts, which include a perternatural ability to block shots and rebound like the lanky nubian that he could very well be. he's one of the select few nba players that look just like egyptian princes because of their facial hair. gerald wallace is another person to share this distinction.
however, we will never get to see his potential fulfilled. with the right coach he could have become a pretty special talent. big guys with an outside shot and the ability and commitment to do the dirty work down low do not come around that often. my only wish is that he had found himself in a position to succeed, with a top-flight nba coach and a lot of playing time to call his own.

we got keys coming from minnesota (?!)

2007-08-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

well it finally happened. the big ticket winds up in the home of the big dig, the hick from french lick, and the sports guy. he perhaps joins the situation of his destiny.
unlike in minny, he doesn't have to score every possession, isn't expected to have the offense run through him, and isn't the ONLY crunch time option. that's why this *could* (and those are some HUGE asterisks on that word) be the best situation for him to be in. i think he would have been better served going to the lakers, but you could then accuse me of homerism so...
the case for the lakers goes: kg is the best beta dog in the history of the lig. he's a phenomenal rebounder, low post defender, etc etc. kobe meanwhile is the definition of an alpha dog. like kg, kobe wants and needs and lives to stomp on the neck of his opponents. however, unlike kg he has the capacity to do so solely with his scoring prowess. if you doubt that shit for a second, watch some tape of his 65-point performance against the blazers trail. both kobe and garnett bring serious intensity to the table, but kobe is garnett's polar opposite on the basketball court. he doesn't even have to smell the key to score, while garnett despite his midrange prowess is most effective when tied to it.
ray ray and prince paul could provide a similar counterpoint to kg's effectiveness. COULD being the operative word, just as i indicated before. but unlike kobe they are no longer unstoppable scorers that strike fear into the opposing team's heart by merely slipping on a uniform. ray still has a sweet outside jumper that even double ankle surgery shouldn't be able to tarnish. pierce also has a semi-nice jumper AND has shown flashes of being able to get into the lane at will. all three would climb through pig innards covered in feces for a shot at a title, and they just might have to unless the celts can grab up a quality pg on the cheap. rajon rondo is meh just due to lack of shooting and passing and general experience but if they got their hands on even a brevin knight type they could be guaranteed a spot in the finals. whether or not they get bent over the scorers table is another matter entirely.

final prediction: 55-37

ref-er-eez

2007-07-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

honestly i was stuck between apathy and confusion when i first found out about this donaghy scandal. donaghate if you will (and i will).

i didn't know what to think, and i didn't care that much at all about it. it's a little bit comforting if you ask me--judging by your presence on lamar blogom i would say you are asking me. it lets me know that the refs aren't ALL incompetent. in fact, they're the exact opposite, in one case. donaghy did this shit for YEARS before he got caught, and guess why?

he was competent. better at his job than most of us would give him credit for probably. whenever most people watch a basketball game they care about the outcome of, the first or at least one of the first things bemoaned is the lack of quality officiating.

well, there are kind of two ways to look at donaghate as it relates to this officiating quality gap.

most refs ARE SO BAD at their jobs that WE CAN'T EVEN TELL WHEN ONE OF THEM IS FIXING GAMES. not exactly fixing, but you know what i mean. "tampering with the outcome of" or the score of or the poitns of. whatever you want to say.
donaghy was SO SMART. that he was ABLE TO FIX GAMES FOR YEARS WITHOUT ANYONE FINDING OUT.

shit, the nba only found out because of an fbi investigation into the mob. that's depressing. for all of stern and stu jackson's crowing about how tightly they monitor their refs, they can't even see that one of the refs is altering basketball games with intent to make money?

that is probably the scariest part of the situation.

however, this is also kind of comforting. maybe the refs aren't as bad as we think. maybe they ARE being paid off to influence the outcome of games. i don't know about you, but when i was a child around 9 i made a sign reading "how much did they pay you?" to take to a lakers game. i guess 9-yr-old me was right in a very delayed semi-perverse sense.

kids do say the darndest things. and sometimes they're right.

after a long hiatus

2007-07-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

i am back. after 2 months (minus 10 days) i am back in this bitch like jordan. still wearing the old 2-3, but back nonetheless.

so what better way to get back on the blog-wagon (clever use of language!) than to take some quickie looks at shit going down around the league.

DARKO FREED (AGAIN)
orlando honestly i think made a huge mistake with this darko fiasco. they traded kelvin cato (trash) and a first round pick (useful) for a promising european big man who had been toiling on the bench for a championship team. that makes sense; darko was the #2 pick in the draft 4 short years ago. and he's STILL younger than some of the people drafted in this year's draft (al thornton stand up).

but the magic never played him either. or at least never in a way that set darko up to succeed. they needed to commit to playing him 40 minutes a night and LIVING with his mental mistakes, of which there were many but still, so he could have the opportunity develop into a tangible low-post asset. as it was, he was still a shot blocking m-fer to the Nth degree and could score somewhat. there still was the unfulfilled promise of rebounding, which he did at an apparently atrocious rate.

darko has another shot to bust out of his self- and other-imposed chaining. i hope he's about to be on some king kong shit and bust out of his chains to chase the elusive lady of fulfilled potential (the analogy kind of falls apart after that--i can't see a 7-foot serb climbing the empire state building only to be shot down by sopwith camels and other biplanes.) starring alongside another euro could be the perfect opportunity. both pau and darko face the knock of being "soft." however, they both have interestingly opposite games. pau will and can be and has always been a scorer of all-star proportions. darko, on the other hand, is a defensive force. well, could be a defensive force. he blocks a lot of shots. let's just say that.

(note: i'm not going to try to handle the foolishness that was the rashard lewis contract. it's been well-covered by other outlets, perhaps best by john hollinger.)

SEA-TAC RIDES AGAIN?!
the supersonics completed what might have been the fastest-ever rebuilding process. by my count, it took about 20 minutes. think of all the things you can do in 20 minutes! they include:

watching a sitcom (minus two minutes)
run 3 (or so) miles
watch the first 20 minutes of "austin powers"

adding durant and green and unloading ray allen's double-ankle-surgery ass for one moderately useful player and a semi-expiring contract was a stroke of really good thinking by r.c. buford protege sam presti. also, resisting the temptation to pay shard his money that he was getting from team disney was a huge step in the right direction. i would have been down to see the sonics become like the hawks in that they played 3 SFs at once, but this time all the forwards have shooting strokes. HOWEVER, that shit wasn't worth the approximately $150 million.

they might not be great next year, but COUNT on durant and jeff green doing some shit in the near future.

missing like the fucking o'bannons

2007-05-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

this playoff bullshit with all my teams getting knocked out in the first two rounds by some serious madvillainy that i was simply unprepared for. but if you thought for one solitary second that there wouldn't drop some shit on the lottery you were sadly mistaken. or happily depending on the perspective.

seriously i love the lottery; nowhere else in sports do the powers that be take such a serious piss on what happened in the year before. and what is more american than saying "fuck all that past bull; we're looking towards the future. CITY ON A HILL BITCHES."? nothing that's what.

when portland get's the top spot and seattle get's #2 that makes me excited because shit who woulda thunk oden and durant would land themselves in the midst of some crunchy hippy starbux sipping mofuckas? honestly i was so into the possibility that STATlanta would be obligated to draft k durant because he's still there that i borderline giggled with glee at their potential future lineups.

the thing is that these picks should be in the other order. portland is blessed with 2 excellent post players with lamarcus aldridge and zach randolph and seatac has athletic swingmen coming out its damn ears should it resign 'shard. which they should and they should have oden too because that would push them towards perfection.

also, portland would take one small step for mankind toward contention if they added a premier wing scorer like say kevin "spiderman" durant. sure they already have brandon roy kind of filling shit up from the perimiter but if you can add future tmac you take that damn chance because shit--you're going to do some shit.

your playoffs stink

2007-05-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

my nba fandom is seriously in the at-risk category. if my fandom were a species it would be: endangered.

the warriors getting bounced was bad enough, although i can kind of rest easier at night knowing that they were done in by a team captained by the kind of hard-nosed visionary that deserves to have won more than zero championships in his career. i'm even willing to look the other way as every single replay showed carlos boozer shoving warriors in the back as he went for rebounds.

THAT'S OK BY ME.

as long as the players themselves are deciding the series, shit i can tolerate the disney-movie-villainy that the jazz call playoff basketball. the warriors WERE like an all-black disney movie, with matt barnes being the prodigy that nellie must save from himself. etc. i'm pretty disappointed in myself that i never saw the parallel sooner but c'est la vie.

on the other hand, the suns were done in by stupidity in the league office. yes, i'm aware that leaving the bench mandates a one-game suspension but jesus h: it's the playoffs. if anything, suspend them for the first game of the regular season or fine the shit out of them but don't take amare stoudemire out of the biggest series of the playoffs. STAT could have saved us from this hellish fate: four teams we can't help but rooting against battling it out for eventual supremacy.

i guess i have to root for the jazz and cavs, but in all probability we're looking at detroit and san antonio taking turns hosting the nba finals. just shoot me.

you think i got all these rings by smiling?

2007-05-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

i'm here to say one thing and one thing only: y'all got it all wrong.

in all of our pants-creaming excitement about the basketball devolution, we forgot some shit. what we forgot, and i include myself in this "we" catergory, is that a team full of real hard dudes can shut down some flashy shit just by looking at people wrong. take the second round (no really, i insist).

a couple of really genuinely fun teams to watch, well 1.5 if you're like me and you only enjoy the suns because you always have and it feels wrong to root against them, are getting manhandled but two teams that are full of the type of people that PLAYOFF BASKETBALL are made out of. the warriors and the suns may have captured some of the essence of those showtime lakers, and the warriors even have a black point guard, but neither one of those teams has the balls to duplicate the success of those bygone years.

actually i should retract my statement: the warriors are crazy enough to do whatever they want on the basketball court (except shoot free throws. my theory is that they're bored at the line because they can't dunk it so they miss on purpose to piss off david stern.) but the suns are seriously some snitchin bitches.

note to the suns: this is fucking playoff basketball. you can't be bitching and moaning every time bowen throws an elbow. i never thought i would be defending the spurs, but the suns better just man up and lay the smack down if they even hope to get by these guys. the spurs have some serious old man muscles along with a ton of playoff acumen, and what that translates to so far is a willingness to do WHATEVER it takes to win. if whatever it takes is kneeing nash in the groin, so be it, they'll do it. even though nash has somewhat toughened his image, i just don't see anyone on the suns but raja bell willing to honestly kill someone just to get at a loose ball. and even in raja, that happens only rarely. maybe that lack of intensity helps them get through the regular season, but to win in the playoffs you need to be kind of mentally unbalanced.

nash keeps it too regular for them to be taken seriously.

no fun league

2007-05-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

seriously it's time to change the abbreviated name of the nba to the nfl. (no fun league get it? i'm so clever.)

these playoffs, with the noted and notable exception of the warriors--who i fear may be going down in flames after this latest near miss against utah-- are boooooooooring. even the normally exciting suns seem to have a going through the paces feel to them. maybe it's the new "intense" steve nash, but there just isn't the same positive energy around the suns that there used to be. banning diaw to the bench probably affected their feng shui in more ways then d'antoni could have ever suspected, but their pick and roll game is just not doing it for me.

i do have some excuse; they played my favorite team in the league during the first round and are playing a spurs team that is incredibly adept at shifting gears into whatever they feel like. honestly the suns are like a nervous student driver and the spurs have their own gas and brake pedal. this is ridiculous. suns: get out and run for chrissakes before i ball up socks and start chucking them at the tv at random intervals.

the entire point of the suns before this season was that they didn't obsess over execution on offense. they flowed freely and enabled nash to make some insanely lucid and acrobatic decisions passing the ball, which in turn allowed STAT+matrix+et. al. to finish shit at the rim HARD. now, we see them running picks and rolls and the spurs defend them by the book and nash gets his jumpers and there isn't any more thunder. keep in mind as i'm writing this that EVERYTHING I'M SAYING COULD BE A CREDIT TO THE SPURS.

seriously, maybe i'm missing them ole suns just because the spurs have them tied up in the trunk of the car and are going over speed bumps. as i mentioned above the spurs are adept at making people play by their style, so this is perhaps all about that. i sure hope so, and i hope the suns and warriors both advance so we can have the most entertaining nba finals ever. (yeah, the east sucks so i'm pretending it doesn't exist until lebron has at least 1 more awesome game.)

you warriors don't show me nothin'

2007-05-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

let the air out of me like a deflated tire. i have to admit that these warriors have turned me into a slavering fanboy like i'm dressing up to see george takei speak.

baron's bullet fedora, nellie coming to a press conference beer in hand, matt barnes' copious tatoos, i love pretty much everything about the warriors. and now, they teeter on the brink of collapse.

in every series, and i said this last time, there is a turning point. it happened last year when the lakers could have closed out the suns, but didn't. now the warriors need need need to seal the deal when it gets back to oaktown or shit could get ugly. but the warriors have the best fans in the game, and draw the most people ever to basketball games. there's strength in numbers like CAN YOU COUNT, SUCKAS? and it seems to me that if any team can close out a superior team at home, these warriors are the ones to do it.

even touched but i'm also concerned: the mavericks survived a sick shooting night by those warriors and won a pretty emotional game. don't even get me started on the refereeing, which included some monstrously shady calls at the end of the game. i think the whistle blew before barrrrrrrrondevean george, and that shit was NOT a foul, no matter the definition. that that was his sixth is pure garbage and the referees should be ashamed that they took away golden state's shot at victory because they were quick with a whistle. yes, i know that it was an intentional foul situation, but they have to know that baron has 5, and that he's not going to foul someone. refereeing is a tough job, BUT GET SOME KNOWLEDGE OF THE GAME.

i'm not even bothering with writing about the east: it seems like it should be exciting, but really the only thing kind of holding my attention is sam mitchell's fashion choices. it just feels like he's a moslem/black panther coaching an nba team from the sidelines. i bet that makes lawrence frank nervous.

oh warriors, come out and pla-ay

2007-04-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

i'm in a glass case of emotion. the bad man just punted baxter.

the warriors took it to the mavericks on some serious WHO'S THE ONE SEED NOW, BITCH? shit. seriously, the mavericks looked RATTLED to even be on the court with the warriors.

observe: stackhouse airballing 3s!
see: jason terry getting stripped then falling on his ass!
watch: mickael pietrus going apeshit, and almost putting stackhouse on what would have been the guaranteed poster of the playoffs!

this series is a serious referendum on the state of basketball. if you didn't already stand up and take notice when the warriors finished the season streaking like frank the tank, it's about damn time you did.

first they take 1 in dallas, then self-destruct in game 2, take game 3 in a rocking home gym, and game 4 made all that shit look silly. in every series there is a turning point. for the mavs it probably came when avery johnson decided to start dirk at center in game 1. he made the mistake of bending to the will of the warriors. you have to understand that as soon as you play the uptempo game with a team designed to play uptempo, YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF WINNING.

that's how the lakers were able to take the suns to 7 last year, that's why they're getting effectively swept this year. the playoffs are all about will imposition. a team simply cannot win if it plays to it's competition: the heat beat the pistons in part last year because detroit tried to run its offense through tay because he had d-wade on him. ride with the horse that brung ya should be the mantra of every succesful playoff coach.

another reason the warriors are winning is they have some serious interchangability. it seriously matters not who is guarding whom when the warriors play defense. everyone is between 6-4 and 6-7 and quick as fuuuu, so the mavs simply cannot break people down off the dribble. their best player is a slow-footed, 84-inch jumpshooter who relies on drives, dishes, and single coverage to make his living. well guess what dirk? they have an intimidating-looking russian and are totally prepared to double team you whenever you have the ball.

in all of this talk about how cleon's crew is neutralizing the mavericks defensively, let's not forget their sick break, lead by barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrron! (everyone get on your jim jones hats and do the fadeaway) davis. seriously when this dude decides to get down to serious b-ballin, shot-callin there is not a more unstoppable scorer from the pg position. nash comes close, but he doesn't quite have the competitive fury that davis conjures. when nash gets upset, it's cute, but when baron gets mad, hit the deck because shots might be fired. legit the entire warriors team could be packing gats in their warmups and no-one would be suprised.

let's see you handle that, mavs.

it seems oddly appropriate

2007-04-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

that the bulls are the ones to knock off the heat. apparently tired of hearing how the heat were a "dangerous" team that people should "keep an eye on," skiles n co. dispatched the heat with a reckless abandon we all thought would be reserved to the cavs-wiz and pistons-magic debacles. the bulls and heat are two of my least favorite teams, especially since tyrus thomas and dorell wright are the only players on either squad with any type of flavor.

(anyone who says dwyane wade has flavor needs to get their head checked. he's the blandest vanilla.)

the heat were the typical nba team of the 90s/early 2000s--one superstar, a supporting "star," and a lot of crappy role players who float listlessly around the court until they're asked to do something vaguely important, like wash dwyane's car, or get shaq donuts, or lube up riley's hair. the bulls on the other hand are a college team for chrissakes. they're team is a glorified roster of all-americans and "proven winners" with big bad ben wallace thrown in for shits and giggles. the only appreciable member of the team that never did anything re: final fours or championships is p.j. brown, whose presence continues to mystify me. maybe he's an expiring contract? or perhaps skiles felt that having one person who couldn't score to save his life on the court at once wasn't enough, so he decided to roll with a second? that's probably it--p.j. brown is there just to add degree of difficulty to the bulls' conquests.

none of the bulls with the noted and notable exception of tyrus thomas have the sort of fiery athleticism that people commonly associate with the association. even luol deng, who seems like the second best candidate for the designation of athletic, is curiously ground-bound and dependent on his freakish arms to retain value. what does that translate to? boring basketball. sorry, but i'm not down to watch a team run their fancy-pants version of what is basically the weave for 20 seconds and then take a jumper. that just doesn't appeal to me.

even phoenix last year, which had almost zero in the way of reliable interior scoring, played and moved so fast, with such a masterful architect at its head, that they were tolerable to watch. but they also had the matrix providing some sick slams on occasion, and he gets far more run that tt could hope for.

the bulls play such a slow tempo, predicated mainly on their defense and someone, anyone, getting hot, that they're basically unbearable to watch. their coming series against the pistons will, objectively, suck.

you bring out the worst in me

2007-04-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

it's not exactly uncommon for a blogger to be a suns nut-rider. i am no exception to that rule. for like 90% of the season (the other 10% being when they play my lakers [LOS ANGELES STAND UP]) i am a huge suns fan. shit, pmac who is the spirit animal of this here blog has been a fan of the suns since the starbury dark ages. i'm saying we roll deep, and i'm saying we remember when, and i have some cred to go along with it.

the suns are a bit of a paradox in that they're generally credited with bringing forth from some primordial soup the vision of an nba where a team can be a team, where it isn't stevie franchise trying to physically pound the life out of the basketball for 20 seconds and then jacking up an ill-advised 3, where a foppish whitey can be league mvp because shit the dude can ball. however, the suns are really a throwback to an era called the 1980s, an era where everyone did coke, miami vice was the biggest show on tv, and magic johnson slept with every woman in hollywood. now, we have perscription drugs, csi:, and don imus saying nappy headed hoes. whatever.

as i guess is my point in the previous paragraph, the suns are not a complex team. they don't try to run the princeton offense, nor do they tango with the triangle. instead, it's a steady diet of picks, rolls, pops, drives, dishes, threes, dunks, etc. etc. ad infinitum. these plays aren't exactly rocket science folks. (or ROCKETS science. pun patrol is on duty.) the way they seem to win is by exploiting the worst tendencies of the teams they are playing against. take the deconstruction currently playing on my tv (sorry TNT, ain't no drama here. go back to the closer.) the lakers couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. which believe you me, they are doing. and the suns exploit this tendency by tossing all kinds of people at a kobe bryant resolutely opposed to driving to the basket. it's not that he isn't distributing, it's that nobody on his team can make an open jumper.

the suns also know that a lot of the lakers are--to be charitable--rockheads. observe as nash's eyes light up from HALF COURT. you read that right ladies and gentlemen. and he hits marion streaking to the basket as kwame and lamar look on dumbfounded. maybe pregame bongrips are bad ideas.

it's not that the suns don't have bad tendencies themselves, but they are so efficient at striking where the opposition is weakest that opponents are hard-pressed to seek out weaknesses of the suns. its awfully hard to punch a boxer that's beating the shit out of you.

***

and, just because, tyrus thomas killing it.

that horse on your chest might as well be a target

2007-04-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

okay let's all be honest. who REALLY picked the warriors to pimp slap the mavs in game one of their soon-to-be seminal first round playoff matchup. no, you didn't pick them and stop lying and saying you did.

now the mavs were last seasons great white hope to some degree, proof that nubasketball (which is really just old basketball from the 1980s before pat riley wrecked it in the mid-90s) could exist and a win a championship for god's sake. now, they're something more along the lines of a semi-dynasty. good every year, with a fiery coach who preaches discipline and defense and a big german superstar whose game is based more on frost efficiency than any kind of otherworldly talent. (dirk is the anti-kobe. you heard it here first.)

so what, i'm supposed to care about these people? they aren't compelling--even their x-factors are proven commodities. i don't think josh howards YESSUH BOSS I'LL DO ANYTHING TO PLAY game has any kind of real appeal except to those who prefer the pliant submission of college ball. that's my main problem with the mavericks. they're far too pliant for their own good. ever anouncer makes a big deal about how they can "play any style" but blah blah blah. isn't the point of being good making teams bow down and respect what you're about to do?

that is why i less than three the warriors. they, and by they i mean nellie, force you to play their way by trotting out big al harrington as center and crazy stephen jackson as pf. it's also worth noting that the blackest coach in the league, well the coach with the team that plays the blackest, is a jowly white guy with a old-timey haircut. i'm lovin it.

the warriors make you play like they want to play, and if you don't do that, then they'll run you off the court. it is that imposition of will that makes them a dangerous team. for that reason also, the mavericks will never win a championship. you can't be the definining team of a season if you yourself have no definition.

re-up gang

2007-04-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

looks like we got a rematch like "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE."

second most entertaining of last year's first round series is back like jordan, and the other ain't even got a shot at happening. in case there's wonder in your eyes the former is lakers-suns and the second is cavs-wiz. it might be true that cavs-wiz has a shot at reocurring due to seeding but come on; ain't like gilly is about to drop any more 50-foot bombs to send shit into overtime. unless he decides to cop 3s from the bench, which believe me he could do. pesky out-of-bounds rules.

but the suns and lakes. two opposite teams that are yet very very similar.

the lakers are KOBEKOBEKOBEKOBE as well all know. they run shit through him, if he ain't working they ain't working, period. the suns are a well-oiled machine on offense, basically scoring at will with a variety of talented performers capable of scoring in a variety of ways. also, their team is athletic enough to be talented on the defensive end; when the game slows down they can reasonably expect to stop teams on a few possessions. at least in theory.

the suns are w/o doubt the better bball team BUT HERE'S THE THING: the lakers could steal the show. they almost did it last year but fell juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust short of the ultimate prize. yeah i know the suns have amare now but the lakes seem to have some sort of crazy mystery tonic for which the suns have yet to develop an antidote. if the lakes can be patient on the offensive end and knock down their shots, there is very little reason why they can't stretch an admittedly godlike suns team to seven games or even knock em down before that. remember that in last years series it took a subliminal performance by tim thomas even to stretch the series to seven games.

yes the lakers will have to play damn near perfect ball, ball they haven't shown they're capable of playing in a long while, but it's a possibility. phil jackson is a gotdamn genius and there is no way he's going to let his team go softly into the night. we talkin about ending the season with a bang, not with a whimper, t.s. eliot be damned.

the ruler's back

2007-04-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

something i'm not seeing reported is king james' serious resurgence. all y'all hating on him for mailing it in the first half of the season (and yes i think i was one of them) need to seriously reconsider your shit and start prosleytizing seriously for tha king. seriously he's been ripping the league up on some 6'8" oscar robertson shit since the asg. believe that.

in other new re: love for things surging in the second half how 'bout them raptors? maybe they're not the suns of the north or the east or whatever the fuck region you want to put them in but they're fun fun fun until your daddy takes your t-bird away. t.j. and jose calderon are seriously good pgs, maybe the best tandem in the league (leandrinho and monTAY ain't pgs no matter how much the suns and warriors wishcast them into that role). from what i hear since we can't get no raptors games in LA is that the raps are seriously fun to watch and seriously good on offense. even w/o jorge garbajosa and w/ a hobbled andrea bargnani (YEAH HIS NAME'S ANDREA WANT TO DO SHIT ABOUT IT?) they're challenging for the 2 seed and seem like they could be on the fast track to eastern conference success.

the east is kind of an old-timey conference (well a throwback to the 90s at least) in that 1/2 of the *good* teams are basically their stars and then NO-ONE. 'bron and wade-shaq both define their teams in a way matched only by kobe and nash out west. and no, i don't think the cavs would be shit in the west, let alone the #3 seed or whatever they are. they're basically the lakers and we know how the kobe show is going so far.

but even though the lakes suck this year they could be seriously dangerous if they stay healthy and add someone through the draft or free agency this year. or if andrew bynum makes a similar leap and vladdy daddy remembers how to play basketball.

OUT.

rock my world

2007-03-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

the houston rockets have certainly had a long journey since they were last in serious contention for the nba title this late in the season. that's right SERIOUS CONTENTION. i ain't talking about the one (if that)-and-done rox of the stevie franchise era. i'm talking about serious, been bangin since my li'l n**** rob got killed for his barkleys, shit.

the rockets, although they may only be a five seed with no hope of catching any of the top 4 teams, let alone the other two texas teams. but while the top 3 are enmenshed in a serious battle like gandalf and the balrog falling through that mountain, the rockets just lay in the cut, waiting for the suns, spurs, and mavs to beat the ish out of each other in the first few rounds so they can come in with yao and tmac's sleepy-ass eye.

the thing about the rox is that they're not the team one might expect. yao and tmac are obviously both offensive LOADS to the point where tmac was once in best-player-in-the-league discussion with kobe and yao, if he stays healthy, is THE dominant post player in the nba. believe that. if you're about to quibble with either of those statements remember that tmac took the shitbag magic to the playoffs multiple times and once drove the pistons to the brink of elimination until tay prince busted out of his shell. also, shaq is decrepit at this point and the big german is not a post player per se, deigning to venture into that world of the large only when small bodies come his way.

the rockets are not a team defined by their superstars in those respects, as so many teams are. in some regards they are similar to an nfl squad in that they are their coach's team. jvg has to garner some love for coach of the year after he took this ragtag bunch of dudes and made them the best defensive team in the league. i would look up that stat, but i'm lay-z. they still play GOOD offense, just not at the juggernaught level one might expect given their two stars.

remember: offense wins games but defense wins championships. i'm not saying the rockets are about to win a title. (ALTHOUGH remember the 2003 pistons squad. and they had way less talent on offense.) they are capable of making some serious noise come playoff time.

odenomics

2007-03-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

we can all agree on two things this march madness:

greg oden will be the first person selected in the draft.
kevin durant was sans doubt the best player in college basketball this year.

this is not a commentary on "will kevin durant or greg oden be a better pro" or some shit like that. in fact i don't even know what the hell this is. this post has been aborted once due to exhaustion so now i'll again take up the sword of bloggership and promise not to resheath it until i'm done with this current quest.

people are really really sold on oden as the number one pick. in fact, kevin durant would have had to become a kind of hybrid between pete maravich and david robinson with a little bit of kevin garnett and tracy mcgrady thrown in for teams to begin to fathom challenging oden's stranglehold on the top spot. hell, even when oden played one handed and was honestly pretty much JUST above average and not the OH SWEET JESUS THE BIG BLACK MAN IS COMING TO SWAT OUR BALLS force that many expected he would be in the pro game nobody batted an eyebrow even as durant was doing shit that amde you wonder just what the hell it is that they put in that new jersey water. dude has spider man powers and probably will make a generation of prospects WISH they grew up in a state contaminated with toxic waste, just so they could get a taste of the shit that gave kd those skills in that body.

well anyways tourney time rolls around and durant half shits the bed and is half screwed by tim floyd bending rick barnes over the scorers table and doing him like barnes is in on a child molestation charge. one would think that once oden's hand has healed, and now that he's shooting FTs with his right ffs, he'd finally stop acting like a bitch and start getting his grown man on. not to be.

the trouble with oden, and the thing that gives him silly potential, is that the man has no idea how to play the angles on a basketball court. i mean watch him, seriously watch him, and you will see a behemoth of a man struggle with a kwame-like fervor over how to get his ass in proper position to block shots. there's a reason he's been in foul trouble the whole damn shebangabang; and that reason is that even in the mockery that is college basketball you can't just blast off and expect results. the best shot blockers, of which andre kirilenko is a fab example, know how to get themselves into position to swat a shot and not get called for a foul. oden just does not understand how to do that.

another issue i have is that while he's good around the bucket, he takes way too many contested shots. good post players take few contested shots, choosing instead for a sick spinoff and slam. watch some shaq tapes from before he became a fat asshole and look at how often he leaves defenders looking silly or just plain outmanned because that man had superior post moves. or akeem olajuwon. either one of those two. or pretty much any great center. sure, i think oden will be a fine player, just maybe not the superstar people expect.

we could be seeing mj/sam bowie on the microscopic scale, but durant will be better in the league.

of course, keep in mind that this is coming from the man who thought bron would flame out.

meet the new boss (same as the old boss)

2007-03-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

d'antoni hath spawned hisself an army. whether it's the gs warriors runnin with nelly like DRAMA I'M BACK or the crazed dungeon-family-exuberance of the melo-iverson nuggets or the raptors tryna front like they know whats up, there is a serious revolution, or i guess devolution technically happening in the league today.

everywhere you look teams trying to get smaller, quicker, better shooting. that ain't bad, in fact it's pretty dern sweet when you think about it. it makes the league on the whole more watchable; when even the shit teams are playing a breakneck speed and killing themselves just to stay alive.

take the warriors for example. what they have is a roster full of tweeners-- matt barnes, monta ellis (stuck between point and shooting guards), mickael pietrus, and basically a host of others my sloth is preventing me from looking up. but the point is that they survive in a way that same roster never could have 5 or 10 years ago. when shaq was still in full effect, and guys like akeem and the admiral were patrolling the paint, no way do you get away with "hey, andris biedrins is my center is that ok?" but in this new-old nba where clutching and grasping is illegal, and any contact is looked upon with an audible intake of breath and a whistle quicker than you can say "that's not really a foul but they will probably call it one anyways" those teams can and do succeed.

they are not the suns because no-one but the suns can be the suns. their talent is off the charts not only in terms of personnel but also in terms of coaching. i guess this will sound kind of like a love letter, but they are probably the most or second most talented team in the league depending on where you put the mavericks. i mean nash is nash, matrix is matrix, amare is a beastly god, and even diaw is sensational in his own french way. it is that collection of talent along with the roll-the-ball-out-and-see-what-steve-does style d'antoni is so comfortable adopting that makes the suns the team that gets me out of my seat, hootin and hollerin like a fool the most out of any team besides kobe. yes, i just said kobe was a team DEAL WIT IT. nash to amare on the screen roll is pure floetry, especially when amare brings the thunder. and no matter how predictable it is that he's going to flush it like "i make it rain on them hoes" i still got my hyphie (original spelling courtesy keak da sneak) shoes on.

but the newbies also bring it like nobodies business. basically the nuggets are the blackest team in the league, and also the best fighting team now that ivey joined their hallowed ranks. they're also seriously putting shit together too. peep iverson and melo both deferring to each other and stepping up simultaneously. if it continues to work, it could form the single most bizarre symbiosis this league has ever ever ever seen. the most comparable people are kobe and shaq, but that doesn't even do this shit justice. basically the 2nd and 3rd most talented pure scorers in the league are playing on the same squad. and this somehow works. FURIOS GEORGE REPPIN IT OLD SCHOOL.

nellyball ain't too shabby neither. he's even got bd, who's usually vd (yeah, punning in this bitch) to chances of winning shit, buying into his scheme. not knocking fools down with statistical output, but at the same time giving it all his creaky frame will allow him. with baron, it ain't about stats young gun. maybe he's starting to recognize that, but that's seriously good. we see him move from HMM I'M OVER HALF COURT TIME FOR A 3 LATE to cool down monta, we setting this bitch up, run a play before our very eyes and we should drop jaws in wonder. he's basically mirroring the evolution of the league with his play. before he was a 3 jacking dunk dropping swag machine, now he's, as i said before, a serious dude willing to put serious time into making this team shit work.

Why I Can't Root For the Lakers

2007-03-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

this is a first, a guest post on lamar blogom. not talking about pmac's little chris bosh is a dinosaur comparison, although that was apt. this is a true blue honest to god guest post by Dennis Danziger, english teacher at palisades charter high school and publisher-editor of mad as hell club, which can be found online at www.madashellclub.net .

Here's the deal, not about Lamar in particular, but about the Lakers and the Laker fans and why I can't root for them even though I've lived here for 25 years and love bball.

Laker fans seem to care more about who's sitting courtside that who's playing on the court.

In moved here in the early 80s, I attended my first NBA Championship Game. Lakers vs. Sixers at the Forum. Kareem vs. Dr. J. Does it get any better than that?

I'm sitting about 20 rows behind the Laker bench, the game's on and I can't help but notice that lots of people, not two or three, but dozens are focused anywhere but on the court. They're looking left, looking right, not to see who's setting picks, but who's in the stands.

Then the buzz, "Where's Jack?" Oops. Jack wasn't in his seat, no where to be found, and people were actually concerned about that than they were that the Lakers were behind.

That's the moment I realized I could never root for the Lakers. The Clippers, sure, the Lakers never.

Eventually Jack settled into his courtside seat and the people around me relaxed and watched the game, when they weren't oogling and gossiping about Jack or Diane Cannon or the stars du'jour who had courtside or near courtside seats.

The other moment that solidified by anti-Laker feeling was a few years back. I remember when the Lakers had won back-to-back championships it seemed as if every third car was proudly waving a Laker flag. But the moment they lost, the car flags came down. Never to be seen again.

This sort of fan behavior would never happen in a real city like NYC, Boston, Chicago or DC.

what you know about mvp candidates?

2007-03-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

clearly not as much as this man, averaging a cool 57.5 points over his last two games. lamar blogom was in full effect at friday's game, believe that.

(as a little post script to our presence there, i would like to submit a person for review as the biggest douchebag ever. he came at halftime and started chanting m-v-p immediately upon sitting down. he turned out to be tolerable because of kobe.)

at this point kobe cannot be quantified by normal means. i guess if i remembered mj in his prime i would call his performance jordan-esque, but i didn't so this is my baseline for "get on my back i'm taking you there" performances. at the end of friday's game with the lakers down nearing the end of the 4th i started to get a sinking feeling; it's usually at those points in games when kobe takes over, or tries to, and the lakes more often that not find themselves losers despite of kobe's attempts at heroics. his heroism usually means attempting damn near impossible shots and rimming them out, but on this occasion it manifested itself as several "forgot about dre" threes, including the tying one in zach randolph's fat face and another spinning away from a double team.

kobe is the last true scorer left in the game, with even the tireless iverson choosing to make nods towards deferring to his younger running mate as the season wears on. kobe is also a throwback to an earlier era, an era in which you did not like your opponents. in fact, you hated them with all your heart and would rather die than see anyone you were up against stride off the court flush with victory. kobe is unique in that he possesses the killer instinct most people only dream about; he will rip out your jugular if it means a shot at victory. and that desire to win can be misconstrued.

he is the utlimate alpha dog. if we accept kevin garnett as the ultimate second banana, always willing to defer, always seeking to make his team better, kobe cannot and will not accept the fact that anyone could ever ever ever be better than he is. that attitude probably doomed his relationship with shaq, but it also gives him a fighting chance in his post-shaq career. he is simply not content to fade into the twilight as a great scorer that cannot win a game of team basketball, even after he's proved himself as pretty much everything possible.

there are 3 banners hanging up in staples in large part because of him, and it is very possible that with a little luck and little personnel moving skill there could be a few more in the rafters before he hangs up his sneakers for good.

round and round and round we go

2007-03-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

notes before we begin: i am aware of the mavs suns thrilla in big D that happened tonight, but i only caught the 2nd and 3rd quarters because i was busy getting boards and buckets for the pimentos of the palisades recreation league. PMAC who has long existed only in the shadowy background of lamar blogom as a co-contributor will be contributing a post i'm told is entitled "do the heisman that ho." we should all be excited.

well it started when mj posted up in his austin powers inspired red crushed velvet jacket and told the five media members of charlotte that bernie is his dawg, but that dawg ain't got no bite. or maybe it started when james dolan made the confusing (to say the least) decision to get all reup gang with isiah thomas' contract. i already dropped knowledge on that. well anyways the carousel spun on over to ill-waukee and found terry stotts sitting at his desk like "what do you want from me all my dudes are injured?" as you can probably tell, the carousel was having none of it.

anyways so they hired someone with an unpronouncable last name in which K is prominently involved. LOOKS LIKE WE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE. maybe this one will have the good sense not to piss me off by coaching duke and tossing gilbert off his roster.

(by the way how much you pay for the pay-per-view showing of gilly playing against the blue devils. i'm prepared to drop $200 if he lives up to expectations. i demand, however, that he play with the long beach state team and that snoop dogg and dick vitale are announcing. snoop would be doing play by play, and at least one time in the game, vitale would have to rep the LBC. just saying.)

actually i take back that the new coach k's name is unpronounceable it's Krystkowiak which ain't so bad as far as these things go. i'll still be saying his name with a scowl unless the bucks turn into some ill shit when everyone is back and healthy and running. the bucks have the potential to be a fine team in the eastern conference. if they can stay healthy, which is a big gotdamn if these days, they have the potential to be a sick squad on offense. there was a reason everyone and their bro (incl. i think me) was ripping the raps for their trade for tj ford, and that is that c villy is so silly when he's healthy.

but they do have to play some defense to win some b ball games. and while winning is sometimes not as high on the lamar blogom priority list as some might like, winning is essential for the bucks because they don't have a single player that makes watching them redeeming in its own right. i guess redd can be fun at times--when he's draining jumpers in front of at least 2 defenseless defenders to be totally specific--but they don't have someone like j.r. smith or j smoove or even shaun livingston--someone that can delight and confound within seconds of each other. every player on their roster is a model of self-actualization, which basically makes them the young spurs, without any defense or a dominating underrated post player. that's right, i said that shit.

in order to become watchable i suggest they do 1 of 3 things--

start playing defense
draft someone electrifying
play at a blindingly fast clip

really any one of those 3 would be fine. OUT.

hold your applause

2007-03-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

as it turns out all it took to shut down the mavs streak and make dirk shit himself was just the GS warriors and baron davis on some "i'm back like spandex" shit. that alone should tell you something about what we here at lamar blogom (WE ARE NOW A DOTCOM, REKOGNIZE) value so much about the lower half of the nba.

it ain't that the lower half is better on some metaphysical level. actually fuck it, it is that the lower half is better on a metaphysical level. you heard it, i said it. as pmac, who's the spirit animal of lamar blogom said "fuck discipline, i'm tryna see bangtime." word to god on that. no-one in their right minds would rather watch some spurs-jazz play-executing bonanza than the suns and the warriors banging on each other in a serious point scoring contest.

there are those who would argue by gloryifying the pursuit of points (and bangtime) above all else, i'm ignoring a key aspect of the game; defense. they would also argue that i'm merely a novice at basketball appreciation or whatever the hell it is that they call it. those are the same people that will argue that ball is jazz, and that jazz>hip hop and everything else. these people are not to be trusted. any man that holds bruce bowen above josh smith is not a man to me. as in "i don't like you go away please now thank you."

anyways, so that was a totally different thing. back on topic. the point mainly is that sheeit happens in the regular season that makes people all irrational and goggly and sweaty under the collar, etc. don't believe me? check the eastern conference from last year. while the pistons were rolling up on the eastern conference, beating ass like everyone was redheaded step-children the miami heat were laying in the cut maybe popping their head out for short stretches. then, playoff time and they are not to be denied. as good as the pistons looked in the season, the cavs damn near broke their backs--and would have if lebron had half of a supporting cast-- and the heat jumped all over them like nobodies business.

well now we fast forward to a few days ago and we see the mavs absolutely tearing up assholes like it's shower time in prison and we think to ourselves "how are any motherfuckers even about to talk about this team can be beat?" but recognize that playoffs literally are a second season with some tangential relationships to the first. even those fade into the deep background after the first round, and then shit might as well have not even occurred when it comes time for the finals. ever heard of shaq?

you did what?

2007-03-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

james dolan, you are retarded.

how you about to give an extension to sans doubt the league's worst gm? he got picutres of you with a dead girl and a live boy? seriously isiah is fucking retarded. i guess less this year but since because he's been trying to save his damn job. maybe it's nice of dolan to give the nice boy another chance to fix the situation that he messed up so memorably. at this point though please; big snacks is getting run on the court?

nvm that it's mind blowing that he even got his fat ass paid in the first place. DUDE HAD ONE GOOD GAME IN LIKE 1,000. why do people insist on looking at tiny sample sizes and trying to assume that that shit will happen on the regular? clearly that was a spectacular game, not the rule. people don't figure shit out suddenly like lightning bolts hitting them in the head. tim thomas ain't going to suddenly become motivated as shit, jerome james ain't about to drop the pig feets and start hitting the gym. shit, kwame brown ain't about to grow a damn brain even if you handed him an instruction manual like THIS IS HOW YOU PLAY BASKETBALL STOP ACTING RETARDED.

people who are bad for protracted stretches of time and then have one good game or one good series or one good playoffs are not suddenly this jesus figure that realized "oh, i've been doing this all wrong this whole time and now i know what to do, can somebody give me my damn cash please?"

EVER HEARD OF A CONTRACT YEAR BUCKO?

ironic that isiah puts together this virtuoso performance (which, news flash they're still five games under .500 are you stupid james dolan?) and hoodwinks his boss just like he got hoodwinked by just about everyone on his damn roster. memo to everyone in the league: you are in an abusive relationship with players who put together one good year or whatever. it's time to stop.

ERIC DAMPIER IS GETTING PAID MORE THAN CARON BUTLER. IT'S HONESTLY NOT THAT HARD TO REPLACE A BIG DUDE WHO CAN KIND OF BLOCK SHOTS AND REBOUND. literally go to any major college anywhere and you can find someone intimidating. like damp is somehow better than dj mbenga? bitches, get your shit together.

a study of the insanity that takes place during the month of march

2007-03-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

what is it that the american people find so compelling about march madness? is it the endless shots of coach k glowering on the sidelines? the occaisional bob knight moment of danger? joakim noah acting a fool?

i would say that it's none of those three things. i would say, and this is pretty obvious to me, that the appeal of it lies in george mason, gonzaga, and vilanova. the zags first bust onto the scene with a floppy haired, floppy dicked rebel named daniel dickau. vilanova shocked the world by shooting 79%(!) in the title game against the hoyas. george mason got to the final four before it ran into joakim "i am the most annoying college player ever because i have a stupid haircut and run around the court looking like a moron but manage to be effective" noah and the FLA gators. (p.s. to that sentence--who would have figured that florida would be the first ever school to hold both the football and basketball titles simultaneously?)

all three of those teams are/were ridiculous underdogs because not only of the fact that they're tiny schools but also because they're a bunch of whiteys (i mainly mean gonzaga here) scrambling around the court shooting and passing and setting picks. that could be the reason why gonzaga is perennial underdogs despite making the tourney 9 of the last 9 years and even being pretty highly ranked in the days of the 'stache. at this point, don't even mention them as underdogs--they're perennial contenders who make the tourney every year and start a bunch of honkeys. whiteness shouldn't=scrappy underdogs.

the magic behind the madness is the possibility that one team, preferably from a mid-major, will have some sort of magical 3-draining run that takes them into the tasty 16 and beyond. basically cbs lives for the shots of reserves leaping around and locking arms and crucifying each other while their team hangs with a big dog. the tourney is the ultimate time for the size of the dog in the fight vs. size of fight in the dog theory to be put to the test. time and again we see a small scrappy team with some outside shooting touch hang around with the dukies or UNC or uconn, eventually snapping their back with a well placed run in the last 5 minutes of the 2nd half. the biggie makes a desperation comeback, one that always seems to fall a little short.

that's the magic--any team can beat anyone else. so sue me if that's the most obvious thing in the world.

the tourney is kind of like the american dream that way; work hard enough and you just might, just maybe might sneak into the promised land. find yourself dancing on a court that says final four in the center, the big scary black people trudging off like "you're on me like a white shadow."

oh you thought we was done?

2007-03-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

man oh man i was 100% prepared to throw the lakers and heat to the curb as two of their top players both went down with shoulder injuries. little did i know that the glaring duo that used to set staples center on fire would once again don their worn costumes and engage once again as masked crusaders.

neither is what they once were--kobe has moved from immature kid to the mamba, capable of striking with instantaneous speed at 99% accuracy; and shaq is now the big delegator, comfortable with the fact that he's not the best in the building. curiously, both of their chief supporters, the men who have enabled them to become this way, are both out with severely messed up shoulders and possibly shelved for the rest of the season.

it would have been perfectly excusable for both teams to fade from playoff contention, or in the lakers case fall to the 8th seed, which is actually worse. but these two masters--one former and one currently resplendent--were not having a damn word of that. kobe hung with the suns until the final seconds, and shaq turned in a vintage performance against his old nemeses the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetroit pistons. we're talking flabby, been sitting on his ass, rehabbing a bum knee shaq, not BIG SHAQ DIESEL A.K.A. THE BIG ARISTOTLE.

these two are stars of another era. yes, i know it was only 4 years ago that they were lighting shit up on the reg'lar, and i know that kobe is still a dominant scoring threat, but the two-star system of championship winning is supposedly on its way out. new nba and all that. shaq and kobe are a call-back to the era where a single man, by the force of his will and talent alone, could sling a team onto his back as if it were a load of bricks and carry that team until his knees collapsed from under him. iverson is another of that era, as are the entirety of the post-30 nyk knicks.

this stretch in which they both drag their moribund franchises will be interesting not only to see if shaq still has it, or if kobe can lead the lakes through the fiery west, but as the ultimate acid test: can one man still make a team superlative? are they done, or back like jordan, wearing the 4-5?

P.S. check out lamar blogom guesting on some real shit over at never mind the bats it's a good blog.

somebody pay gerald wallace his damn money

2007-03-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

gerald wallace looks pharaonic when he has his mouth closed and is grimacing.
that he is a resident member of the nba-players-who-look-distinctly-like-other-things club (chris bosh is the president; he strongly resembles a raptor) is reason enough to pay gerald more than the midlevel that he's currently getting. add in the fact that at 24, he's been steadily improving and seems to finally be healthy, and that he has bounce out the building, and that he steals like it's watts circa 1993, and that he scores without a jumper. this is a bad, bad man.
if he doesn't get paid, and there's a good chance he won't, given that every team but his current one and the orlando magic is either over or close to the cap, this is going to be some serious scandal. he didn't get paid 2 summers ago, even though every gm in the league should have seen this monster struggling to break loose.
the one major thing besides the fact that he's injured a lot that's hurting is value is that he plays in charlotte, which is an nba wasteland. he does have good stats on a bad team, but this is a bad team that's going places. however, they're not there yet. they're probably one or two years and one free agent signing away from bursting onto the eastern conference scene like illmatic. reckognize that they have had no bad contracts, and one semi-bad draft pick unless morrison figures his shit out, then they're model nba citizens.
that ain't the point, but it kind of is. gerald can't get paid if he's got no exposure. i would draw parallels to hood mixtapes. people know that shit's bumping every block but since sony ain't exactly sending A&R riding through the hood like "what's up" no-one but the streets heard that sound.
that is simply not right. someone should pay this man his money. i hope its the suns, and they show the world what new-age james worthy looks like on the new-age showtime lakers.

the most tragic and seemingly random injuries can happen without warning

2007-02-28T19:24:00.000-08:00

just ask shaun livingston, who saw a semi-promising season thrown down a serious mine shaft when he landed badly after dunking.

the terrifying this about this injury isn't that he messed up his knee that bad, but that he did it doing something all of us who play basketball do; jumping. by simply landing funny, he will not play ball for 8-12 MONTHS. that shit is so sincerious.

the injury becomes more tragic because he was beginning to show signs of realizing his potential as a truly special point guard. sure, he might not have been magic, but he had the same height, and was flashing court vision. well, i guess we have to wait another year for the revolution to come.

thesis: it's more fun to watch an idea in its natal stages

2007-02-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

i guess the title of this post makes what this post is going to be about pretty darn clear.

let's start with a list of totally self-actualized teams. notice that these teams are going to tend to be older and also tend to have more "glue" players, a.k.a. semi-shitty people who don't have offensive personalities.

pistons
spurs
heat
rockets
clippers (now that livingston broke himself)

i'm sure i'm leaving some people out. anyways, those teams are by no means exciting, nor do they have the potential to be exciting.*

all the rest of the teams in the nba have some great untapped resource, sometimes just waiting for a coach to free it, sometimes a resource that will never be free. even the chicago bulls and indiana pacers, two teams legitimately terrible to watch, both have some serious potential to improve their watchability when certain players reach their potential. or rather, are reaching their potential.

as i said before, when a player becomes all he is supposed to be, where the hell is the fun in that? for that reason alone, i find dwyane wade borderline unwatchable. there's no drama in his game anymore. we know that he will get to the bucket, we know that he will toss himself blindly backwards into the nearest defender and toss up a wild shot, and we know that he will be sent to the free throw line for one or two. there is no excitement, there is no drama, there is no mystery.

i guess the mystery of the players is what makes them so compelling. kobe, who is by all means a killing machine, is not entirely self-actualized. even now, as he can still tear defenses apart, there is still a kind of lingering insecurity. insecurity as in, will he get his teammates involved, or will he improve his shot selection and arc. even if we accept kobe as far and away the best in the game today, there is no doubt that he can still make serious strides. believe.

that same mystery that applies to players applies perhaps doubly to teams. the pistons, for example, are a well-oiled machine but literally no-one outside of the detroit area would ever mistake them for compelling basketball. they run their sets well, they defend alright, and they have no players outside of jason maxiell capable of making strides forward in contributions to the team. they dealt away any excitement factor when they shipped carlos arroyo and darko to the magic for kelvin cato of all people. now, they are a succesful team, but sans any drama as to whether or not they achieve their result. we know what teams they can and cannot beat, and there is very little wiggle room as to that fact.

the raptors on the other hand, are an intensely dramatic team. they are still feeling each other out on the basketball court, but bryan colangelo has created a vision with serious implications for the future. i know that they are currently leading the atlantic division, but andrea bargnani, the first pick in what has turned out to be a ridiculously awful draft, has not begun to fathom his depths. this boy has nowitzki potential, but with more D. i'm not saying he will be nowitzki, but the very tantalizing fact that he might be is enough to keep me watching. if, that is, their games were ever on tv.

instead, we get to see the heat and the rockets compete in a game that has already long since been decided.

* i retract that sentence somewhat if you consider watching dwyane wade parade to the free throw line "exciting." personally, that makes me want to vomit.

come and gone

2007-02-22T18:05:00.000-08:00

i had the idea that i would do a rundown of what some possible rumors and their implications were pre-deadline, but was so anemic that any discussion of like vague possibilities was simply not a thing i could summon the courage to commit electronic media. instead of getting coverage about the might-as-well-have-not-existed trading deadline, you'll be hearing about why i love the phx suns.

here it is:

when phoenix traded starbury to nyk at the beginning of isiah's tenure, many people had the idea that his departure would do two things:

elevate new york to a collection of playground heroes capable of doing serious damage once they reached the playoffs.
relegate phoenix to lottery hell, an inescapable fate.

we now know that the exact opposite is true, especially after phoenix "overpaid" for steve nash. who then promptly became someone that should be counted among the all-time great point guards. yeah, maybe he shouldn't have won the mvp 2 years running, but his reinvigoration of the previously moribund nba cannot and should not be ignored.

my love, and peter's love, for the suns could be described as unconditional. even when they were slaying my lakers in a brutal 7-game indictment of kobe bryant's supporting cast and i felt as though each passing moment was a twisting of the knife, i reveled in their incredible floor spacing and passing ability. in that series at least, they made basketball look like a serious art form. they didn't have STAT, but painted a masterpiece in spite of, or perhaps because of his absence.

now that he's returned, nash is seriously even better than in his previous two campaigns. they still run fools off the court non-stop, but now there is someone to get me out of my seat. every game they play is a shout-fest as one sun or another receives a pinpoint pass from the canadian commie and throws in through the hoop with reckless abandon. when nash brings the ball up the court, we know that something incredible is bound to happen.

we know with all of our hearts that he will will will find someone slashing to the basket or someone spotting up, toes just north of the three point line, or he will take it himself, defying the laws that say white boys shouldn't be able to take it in where the big men lay.

basically the entire team is a slap in the face of those who say you can't win in the playoffs with a run-and-gun style, those that say a team that is fundamentally international in nature can't compete with our own home-grown american boys, and all those that proclaim the nba is a league of individuals. the mavs might be a supreme collection of individual talent wrapped up in the premise of team ball, but the suns are the direct apothesis of the 90s-era player-as-team dogma.

once again back is the incredible

2007-02-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

i had it in my mind that i would wait until youtube got updated with some videos before i would get officially hyphy about what went down about 1 hour ago. i, of course, am referring to the slam dunk competition during the 2007 all-star festivities.

nate-rob and j smoove offered a hint that the competition was returning to its former glory. jumping over spudd webb and tossing up a nique tribute whilst rocking the throwback took serious steps in the right direction. but there were also moments of embarrassment.

josh smith's bizarre tape-placement dunk (the one where he put down some tape on the FT line then jumped from like 3 feet past it, although some speculate he was just fixing the court) was high on the list of the reminders that the halycon days were long since faded.

(i also definitely should not be leaving out amare stoudemire's pretty-fly-for-a-big-guy display 2 years back when he teamed up with canada's number 1 citizen for some sick dunks.)

well so fast forward with me to this year. maybe it's just my expanded appreciation of the nba's rising youngsters but i was seriously geeked for this year's comp. the mere threat of ryan hollins' rumored leaping ability had me amped, but even with him as a non-invitee there was still a nice little lineup. of the quartet tyrus thomas was the only seriously disappointing one, and even he had a bizarre dunk that severed the net.

firstly, dwight howard confirmed my earlier assumption of unsafe bounce when he put a sticker of his smiling face TWELVE FEET AND SIX INCHES ABOVE THE GROUND. re-read that, recognize that it is not a typo, and then wait like a crack addict until some kind soul posts that shit up for you to see.

other highlights include gerald green dunking a pierce alley-oop that came off the backboard, then re-enacting dee brown's steez but this time jumping over real live nate robinson. nate had a decent dunk in the final, but my man gerald was just out of damn control.

now we come to the point of the dunk contest. gerald had it right when he said that it was hard to be creative now because everyone done took all the good shit. he also highlighted the importance of planning and props. nate was decent, but all he did was try to toss the ball to himself and jump out the damn building. gerald brought out a table and a cardboard cutout of nate robinson that was then replaced with the real thing.

people will still complain that there aren't stars in the contest, but i think that nate really showed why stars in the contest might in fact be disappointing. he had the title and took a pretty obviously lazy approach to this year's contest. the presence of up-and-comers like gerald, like dwight howard, and like tyrus thomas means that there will be real effort made to concoct truly creative dunks, versus relying on the power of their personality to win the contest. sure, lebron or wade might be able to throw down like these fellas but do you think they'd be even half as motivated as someone with a name to make for themselves?

didn't think so.

when people talk about improving the dunk contest, their number one idea is to reintroduce the star element. now we have the clear lamar blogom take on that shit: keep the stars in the game, give me the gerald greens, give me the andre iguodalas, and give me the ryan hollins gotdamnit.

(oh and charles barkeley beat dick bavetta and even ran backwards at the end. and they kissed on the lips.)

"fuck stairs, he can just jump up floors."

2007-02-14T19:26:00.000-08:00

p mac, lamar blogom's spiritual guide contributed much of the material for this post, including but not limited to the title and the below awesome video.
dwight howard is basically a small child in a grown-ass man's body. he is figuratively a boy among men. that boyish quality both gives him a limitless ceiling and defines him as a player. he is, don't get me wrong, an absolute specimen of what a person looks like when he is the buffest and bounciest he can be. he honestly has bounce that puts his own body in danger whenever he flies to the rim. i wouldn't be terribly surprised if he ended his own career through some bounce-related incident.

anyways. he is not lebron james. lebron was and is a very mature, very self-possessed young man. he does not slip up on or off the court with the semi-notable exception of the hummer scandal in his high school days. dwight is prone to walking around talking like borat and riding roller coasters with his homeys. while screaming. and being on videotape. and with people around who might doubt his hardness.

i say that because he is the functional opposite of ron artest. whereas ron-ron is obsessed with his tru warrier persona and all of its trappings, dwight has seemingly very little conception about what people think of him. his game is not as polished or flowing as we've come to expect from a "good" player. even as rough around the edges as he currently is, he plays at an all star level. that very fact kind of makes me shudder at what he will become when he developes a good repetoire of post moves and no longer has to rely on his unsafe hops.

is shaq self-actualized?

2007-02-10T21:38:00.000-08:00

yes, i do mean in the metaphysical, buddhist sense of the word self-actualized. i will try to stumble through a basic analysis of his relationship to the basic tenets of a philosophy i have a vague understanding of.

shaq as he exited college was a force to be reckoned with. never before had the league seen a big man of such size and power. power is i guess the operative word there. even at 7'0" kareem and wilt and bill russell weren't breaking backboards like it was nothing. shaq was just a plain big dude.

add that to the fact that he ran the floor excessively well for a big man and occasionally flashed some sick PG moves on the breakaway, and multiply by a pretty sick array of post moves and you have a big man that basically defined and destroyed the center position in the 90s and still today.

(if you don't believe me, just look at the fact that scott pollard of all people is still being payed to play basketball. also, the career of earvin "don't call me magic" johson for further proof.)

BUT, and this is a big but so it was capitalized, shaquille has never come home with an mvp award. the case could be (and has been) made that he has never even deserved an mvp award. even in 2001, where the case for his dominance was strongest, AI pulled a substandard sixers team on his narrow shoulders all the way to the finals. (in a continuation of the shaq-killed-the-center argument, they had todd macullogh.) how is it possible that the big man that defined a generation was not capable of putting together a season for the ages?

the easy response is that he's lay-z, and that covers most of it. whether it's spending the summer rapping or amatuer policing, shaq has never put off-season conditioning high on his priority list. basically the season was his chance to get back into shape. even then, he still took off a week or two to rehab a toe or ankle some would have gritted their teeth through. not to denigrate shaq's force of will in the paint, nor to take anything away from the fact that he has 4 championships to his name, but he has not ever been the one force on his team that opponents had to contend with.

in orlando there was penny, in LA there was kobe, and in miami, there is wade. all of those are superlative basketball players that were all making all-nba appearances while shaq was their running mate.

even as i'm saying this, i'm realizing that MJ never did shit in terms of championships without pippen, but let's just ignore that because mike was the most self-actualized player ever at all stages of his career.

shaq never lived up to his potential for dominance. sure. he's had good seasons, great ones on occasion, his most notable one in 2000 in his first year with the wizard of hollywood. and though he dominated games a great many times during his career, he never

led the league in rebounds
scored more than 30 ppg

i know that there's technically still time for him to do both, and he's still somehow averaging 20/9, but let's not kid ourselves. shaq o'neal is waaaaaaaaaaay on the downside of his career. every time i see him humbly stumbling around the court, basically staying afloat on his aura and some still pretty good post moves, i shed an inner tear reminiscing about what was and what could have been.

how far have the mighty fallen?

2007-02-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

feast your eyes on this iconic image of cwebb and kg before we move on.all done? fantastic.

basically that image is symbolic of the different paths that the two players chose, kg redefining the PF position and cwebb kind of trying to but not really doing as well as everyone thought he would.

no one will ever dispute certain things about webber: he's a phenomenal passer, he has awesome hands, and his knees have so thoroughly betrayed him that he looks like a particularly spry 50-year-old hobbling around the court.

as i type this, the lakes are squaring off against his new pistons on a national stage, and cwebb has 11 points/6 rebounds/5 assists at the half. pretty good numbers, especially considering he has two bad knees. he's around 50% from the field, but it's readily apparent that he is quite simply not the player he was in sactown's laker-killer heyday, nor is he even the player he was last year when the 76ers sold him as the solution to iverson's woes. we all know how that worked out.

webber is not a tragedy; he was a pretty special player before his knees betrayed him, although perhaps not all that he could be. his career was not done in by a tragic character flaw, instead done in by failing health and failing teams.

he was a great player in his prime, there is no doubting that. he could score in the post, had great court vision, and ran the floor very well on rick adleman's run-and-gun queens. he would have captured a championship in those years were it not for the meat-grinder shaq-and-kobe lakers of that time. but webber's career is somewhat defined by excuses like those.

in michigan as a member of the fab 5 he shot his own self in the foot, the infamous phantom timeout ending their shot at a national title and collegiate glory. he underachieved alongside juwan howard as part of the Twin Towers of the washington bullets, and toiled away on exciting kings teams while the lakers complacently ruled the roost. he failed to capture a championship, and will probably continue to fail unless the pistons pull off a heat-like miracle this summer, due to what can only be described as punishment by the gods of the hoop.

lord only knows what transgressions he committed to deserve such a fate.

just to say i told you so and have a record of telling you so

2007-02-04T15:12:00.000-08:00

bears about to win this shit.

gilbert being gilbert

2007-02-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

gilly and deshawn stevenson put 20k on a 3-point shooting contest.
gil shot one-handed from college distance, deshawn regular-ass from pro.
watch it happen.

also, ryan hollins can apparently dunk from the free throw line

wait for it...

OFF OF TWO FEET. basically, that's unheard of. if he can for real do that, then DAMN.

just what, exactly, is going on with the bobcats?

2007-01-31T21:06:00.000-08:00

there is a certain segment of the NBA landscape that is very challenging for me to wrap my mind around. i would include in this list:

bobcats
hawks
warriors
lakers
knicks

these are all teams with no shortage in the talent dept. all of them have probably better than NBA-average talent, especially the knicks, who are creatures of nothing but talent. all of those teams have a habit of smacking down (or at least contending with) the top squads in the NBA, but severe trouble hanging with teams on their level/inferior.

i guess it's a young team's disease: to play to the level of talent that you are facing. partly it may have to do with discipline. none of those teams have coaches with reps as stern-faced giants who give little quarter to screwing around. isiah thomas replaced a notorious disciplinarian with himself, and his hands-off style has led to somewhat more success. phil jackson is the greatest coach ever, bar none, and the fact that the lakes are on or near a 50-win pace is astonishing to say the least, but he doesn't drill spacing, etc. into the heads of his charges. don nelson is a terrific offensive mind obsessed with a helter-skelter running attack and often lackluster defense. bernie bickerstaff and mike woodson are by most accounts non-descript, with maybe a slight bent towards running.

their lack of discipline means that they lose focus against weaker teams, focusing instead on the girls lining the court or whatever else holds their fancy. but discipline doesn't come and go ephemerally, it's either there or it isn't. that's what makes their success against elite teams so baffling.

the answer lies in NBA 2k7, or madden, or halo, or whatever. when you play video games with your friends, blowing them out of the water is highly unsportsmanlike. if you consistently blow your friends out, they will no longer want to play with you. but, if you keep games close and let 'em win a few, it keeps the games competitive and fun.

that is what affects those teams today. they're all something of video game creations; the knicks and lakers most especially. all of those teams are fun to play with in video games, and all of them have the level-of-competition mentality required to be any fun at all to play with. it's no coincidence that as the squads tend towards the older, they start maturing more and blowing the weaker teams out of the water.

consider the 40-year-old man. his friendgroup is set, unlikely to be undone by such trivial passtimes as ps3 or xbox360. he has little concern for complete destruction in a virtual world. contrasted with the teen, already probably socially self-concious. the last thing he needs is to lose a homey over a blowout in madden. there you go.

dispatches from laker games

2007-01-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

lamar blogom had its second laker outing as a blog, this time with the actual writer (me) and the nominal one who serves mainly as a spiritual guide (peter.) lakers lost, could have won but for bad free throw shooting, took it right down to the wire and blew a big lead at the end.
lamar kept it real in a serious way. he looks about 85% back, but with every loping stride down the court, every rebound pulled down, every surreal dunk/layup in the lane, reminds me of why i picked his ass as the logo in the first place. dude can seriously ball, and he seems to be just coming into his own as a player and as an integral part of the triangle offense. i don't know how high his ceiling is, but from my place about 12 rows back it looked pretty high.
some random notes:

francisco elson and fabricio oberto remind me of bubbles and his white homey from the wire. just a couple of crackheads.
elson's legs are skinny to the point that i was seriously worried that if someone crossed him up, he would have to be hospitalized.
andrew bynum's arms are really really long.
i know you know this, and i know i've said it, but kobe is a damn assassin when he gets the ball in the clutch. bang bang, right in bowen's face.
kobe is more efficient now; started the game 10/15. he lets the offense start up and move the lakes until the last 5 minutes or so, then he turns into the MAMBA.
everyone on the spurs roster is a bitch. keep that in mind.

the Lamar Blogom Midseason Awards

2007-01-27T13:54:00.000-08:00

i'm going to keep this relatively simple.

most valuable player- kobe bryant.
pushing the lakes to 50-win pace despite have a shit supporting cast and being without his number 2. for nearly half the season so far. his numbers are down from the god-like heights that they were at last season, but that's part of the reason that the lakes are playing so far above their own heads. the knock against kb24 has always been that he doesn't involve his supporting players enough (shaq would have been a supporting player in this line of reasoning.) now, he's doing it and everyone seems to be giving dirk nowitzki love. dirk is great, but he has the best supporting cast in the entire league and doesn't do much but score.

most improved player-monta ellis.
shoot first pgs, as a rule, do not make the transition from high school to the pros. hell, they don't even make the transition from high school to college. credit monta for shitting all over that nugget of common wisdom. he's proved to be an electric presence off the warriors bench, even filling in for the oft-injured baron davis when he goes down. gives leandro barbosa serious competition for the best quick guard in the league title. expect him to wrest it away one of these years.

biggest balls- gilbert arenas.
whether its draining 3s from past 38 feet or not watching potential game-winners as they streak towards the basket, with every game he cements his status as the best combo guard ever. take that, jamal crawford!

once and future king- amare stoudemire.
came back like jordan, wearing the 1. it's not to play games with you, it's to aim at you. if this is 80-90%, i shudder to think what the suns will be like when STAT is fully back and primed for explosion. although he doesn't yet have the leaping ability that made him what he was 2 years back, he cannot and will not be ignored when he gets the rock down low. makes dwight howard look like a pussy bitch.

fucking play me!- darko milicic.
i know that per-40 numbers aren't entirely accurate, and i know that he has some trouble with fouls. but the guy's 40 minutes numbers are 13.1 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.1 blocked shots. what, oh what, will it take for us to see the serbian gangster unleashed upon the league? just let him stay on the court, even if he does look lost on occasion. i know this has been said before, but free darko.

coach of the year-phil jackson.
it seems contradictory to give coach of the year to the head of a team that i just accused of being entirely kobe's creation. well, give credit where credit is due. he managed to make an 11-man (occasionally) rotation out of what would be scrap parts on most teams. the fact of the matter is that when the lakes are entirely healthy they could go 12-deep. not that those 12 players are some kind of special bench force that's full of super-secret talent. phil knows what lineups work well together and takes care to put those players on the floor with each other. that's pretty much what a good coach does.

executive of the year- jerry west.
i already told you.

ruler's back

2007-01-26T23:38:00.000-08:00

lamar came back gunning today, and though the lakers lost to the bobcats, his future looks bright. we already knew that, but there you go. not a bad game for 1st one post-injury.

the lamar blogom all-stars

2007-01-25T21:51:00.000-08:00

no, not like the ones i layed down in the offseason. these awards are based purely on who's the best (as i amorphously decide it) in both conferences. i'll lay down a sentence or two for each dude. basic rules:

they have to be in that conference for which they are selected.
2 guards, 2 forwards, 1 center.

let the selections begin.

WEST.
pg: steve nash- sneaky 'nuck posting career numbers after 2 straight mvp awards. obvious.
sg: kobe bryant- possible g.o.a.t. in his prime elevating the worst supporting cast in the league to 50-win pace.
f: dirk nowitzki- big german who keeps on refining and improving every single season. pretty hard to guard.
f: kevin garnett- the most intense player in the league, rumored to be able to kill people using only his eyes.
c: amare stoudemire- maybe not playing as well as tim duncan, but the mofo plays for the best team in the conference, is ridic bangtime, and is only about 80% back. STAT.

EAST.
pg: gilbert arenas- non-stop daggerman from further than 38 feet out. goofy as hell.
sg: dwyane wade- (and it pains me to say this but) he's basically dragging the heat along on some man-sized shoulders. i put him just below kobe in the sg rankings. i will now shoot myself repeatedly.
sf: lebron james- actually tailing off a little this season. rampant speculation that he may be shaqing it until the playoffs. best shape that up or the cavs might never sniff glory.
pf: chris bosh- crafty lefty that looks like a velociraptor and plays w/somewhat less ferocity. still awesome.
c: dwight howard- this gives the east 4 players drafted since 2003, and 5 in this millenium. it is for that reason that the east will become the dominant conference sooner rather than later.

sometimes you just have to shake your head and chuckle

2007-01-24T19:27:00.000-08:00

ladies and gents, we are experiencing one of the greatest basketball seasons of all time. no, i don't mean the superlative suns or marauding mavericks (alliteration: out of control). what i do mean is the cellar-dwelling grizz.

let's examine their situation for a quick second. before the draft, they had a roster that was maybe going somewhere, maybe stuck in neutral for the next few seasons. then, and here's where the genius of the logo starts, they trade shane battier for rudy gay + stromile swift. battier is a well known glue guy, one who puts up solid #s and provides hustle and all that weak shit. contrasted w/gay--who has the chance to become a truly thrilling and dynamic player--shane battier is approximately a doodie on the shoe of a dancing monkey. stro swift ain't all that, but whatever, he can dunk.

this trade had two immediate effects: it took some toughness out of the grizz organization and added a dynamic that will doubtlessly have a huge positive return down the road. sure, they suffered in the short term. their success last year was largely predicated on lockdown D, of which they lost the key to when battier departed. it's also worth noting that bobby jackson left the team, subtracting offense and some decent defense. he's shoot-first and injury-prone, but he's solid.

now that we've established that they sucked the defensive soul of a team that was severely reliant on that same D to carry them, we can also see that jerry west added one player who has tremendous potential to contribute and one player who can run the floor and block shots.

perhaps because of the subtraction of battier, or maybe the early absence of pau, the grizz started quite slowly. like as in worst team in the league slowly. pau comes back and it's kind of better, not much, so logo fires fratello. don't get me wrong, fratello is a fine coach and doubtlessly a terrific person to relate to, but he was not the man to lead them to the promised land. they bring in tony barone, who is italian, to push the tempo.

what does this do in terms of overall effectiveness? almost nothing. BUT, it makes the players happier because they get to get out and run, which means big stats. and big stats mean big contracts/vesting options/whatever. however, this doesn't make their disgruntled spanish mountain man any happier, so he requests a trade.

NORMALLY THIS WOULD BE A BAD THING. no team wants to trade their young star, esp. because he seems to be just coming into his own. but, and there's always a but when jerry west is involved, this gives them the perfect excuse for the grizz to flip him for some good bulls. now doesn't that sound appetizing.

factor in that they will still have a really terrible record, and then factor in the talent level in this year's draft.

now, picture with me something truly amazing. the grizz could be moving along with
PG: stoudamire
SG: jones
SF: battier
PF: pau
C: tsakalidas or whatever

OR, they probably will be entering next year with a lineup resembling
PG: stoudamire
SG: ben gordon
SF: luol deng
PF: hakim warrick (developed+ready to kill)
C: greg "motherfucking" oden

now picture that with rudy gay coming off the bench.

it was only the grizz but...

2007-01-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

to be perfectly honest, what i saw of the nuggets game was a happy coincidence that resulted from a stats studying session finished early. it is bizarre that a jewish-american princess would have NBATV on her 1,000,000 inch plasma screen tv, but both of those things happened. i tuned in just in time for the nuggets to get their swerve on in a serious way (about midway through the first.)
to me, that was a perfect example of how the nuggets SHOULD function. they basically hopped into passing lanes and ran the grizzlies clean off the floor. i would say that that is a fairly repeatable model for success, but one that requires that they have freakish athletes capable of lane-hopping and floor-running. fortunately, the nuggets are gifted with an extremely athletic team. (perhaps most athletic in the nba?)
but once the game moved along into the 2nd quarter, all the pratfalls of the nuggs approach were on full display. they didn't steal and j.r. smith shot far too many 3s, leading to far too many fast breaks, leading to far too many made baskets, leading to no fast breaks/easy finishes for denver, leading to more j.r. smith 3s. it's a vicious cycle.
ALL THIS BEING SAID: i wouldn't count the game as meaning too goddamn much. after all, it was their first game ever together, and the natural tendency is to create tension/chemistry where none has had the opportunity to grow. i know it was just the grizz, and i know the nuggets will not become the suns, but maybe they can repeat their 38-point 1st quarter once a game. for me, that will be enough.

hear the roar

2007-01-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

if you're not excited about melo and AI finally sharing the floor together tonight, get your head checked.

unfortunately it's on NBA tv and not the truly national stage i hoped and prayed for. that means, you guessed it, that i will be confined to highlights and press recaps to try to comprehend whatever is about to spring forth. lord help me while i wait.

but i still get to see the kobe-led lakers take on the new-look warriors. so expect some kind of accounting on both of those tomorrow.

Heaven ain't no chocolate teacup

2007-01-21T20:27:00.000-08:00

That title was just kind of one of those things that I said until there didn't seem to be an option to title this anything else. At least of the words appear in the dictionary, even if that same dictionary warns against their conjoined use.

The reason this post is entitled as it is (esp. w/r/t "Heaven" being included) is because it's time to seriously contemplate what I really seriously find attractive in a basketball team and a basketball game.

i guess the main point that attracts me most to the game is its unique combination of beauty and power. in no other sport (besides perhaps football, but i'll cover that later) can a spinning reverse layup be appreciated in the same stratosphere as a thunderous dunk layed down by a big ol' dude. i get all up in arms when kobe or gilbert slices to the hole and lays in a ball no-one thought had any chance of smelling the rim into the hole, but what really gets me superhyphy is when STAT (amare) spins off some chump and posterizes his ass in front of thousands. not to say that kobe ain't perfectly capable of that same posterization (see his twin hammers on duncan for proof of that,) but the point is that it's totally unthinkable that those two plays (the layup representing the beauty and the dunk representing the beast) exist in the same sport as each other, much less theoretically w/in seconds.

i guess i have to go back and contradict myself a little bit here. it is totally thinkable that those two displays of grace and power respectively exist alongside each other, becuase they both accomplish the same purpose; to put points on the board; but it's also worth noting that those two are unique entities almost unrelated except for their ultimate goal. you get the point.

my thesis is that there is a special kind of relationship happening in basketball that makes it so ill. football does have it w/r/t the dichotomy btwn a wide reciever twisting and turning to pull down a miracle reception and big ol' 300 pounders spilling sweat blood and tears in an attempt to atomize fellow big ol' 300 pounders.

BUT (and this is a big but so i capitalized it) football is essentially decided by those big huge men. sure we see recievers and quarterbacks make their own special kind of balletic composition, but football wouldn't be shit w/o the doughboys in the trenches. believe that.

the unique thing about basketball is that the power and the quicks don't need each other to win. (just try blocking a d-line with a collection of wideouts and see how that works out.) but in basketball, we need only reference the suns circa 05-06 to observe a team totally devoid of the rugged spirit that made the 03-04 pistons champs. not to say that the 05-06 suns did not have power, and also to acknowlege that any kind of attempt to dichotomize is an exercise in pure foolishness, but also to note that the suns were totally wrapped up in not punishing people the way punishing people is necessary in all other sports (except for baseball which trends a long long long way towards the pure beauty spectrum.)

that's why i love this game i guess. more reports of this kind to come.

Fear not the moustache

2007-01-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

Adam 'Moustache' Morrison entered the NBA to great fanfare; he was the next Larry Bird, the great white hope for a generation tuckered out from watching the Y,B,+F ride around in their Bentley coupes. Hell, he even entered it on a team in need of what he supposedly provided; a top-notch pure scorer unafraid to shoot early and often and unafraid to create his own shots. The Bobcats are not exactly laden down with an excess of star-quality talent for Moustache to take shots away from. I love them with all my heart, even included Gerald Wallace on my All-Lamar team over the summer.

But, Moustache has been something less than advertised. Rather than providing some steady production to the Bobcats' lineup, he provides only a willigness to take shots. For every performance in which he drops 30 like it's absolutely nothing, he's left standing in despair 2 others, wondering why his shots won't drop.
I have heralded him as the White Glenn Robinson, but he has done nothing but show flashes of the awesome streak-shooting that could turn this prophecy true. It could turn out that he is the White Antoine Walker, forever doomed to toss up lines of 8/20 and to look like an oversized (and desperately un-cute) infant.

Ironically, the Bobcats had the solution to their shooting woes in-pocket throughout the entire Morrison saga. Matt Carroll ain't no household name, but he does do what the Bobcats need the most: knock down wide open jump-shots when he is passed the rock. But, the main problem with Carroll is that he is not a star and never-ever-in-a-million-years will be a star. I assume with that assumption that whiteboys with a pretty good stroke from outside that look and play pretty much like a taller Steve Kerr will not suddenly become vogue.
Morrison has the potential, which I know is kind of a filthy word to certain old-guard broadcasters and coaches, to become a star in the league. A star completely opposite his defense-minded counterpart on their roster.

EDIT: As soon as I finished writing this, I saw that the Bobcats beat the Pistons (again), with Moustache contributing 16 from the bench on 6/15 shooting. He was what I thought he was I guess.

"My swag was phenomenal"

2007-01-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

Gilbert explains just what happened after his sick buzzer beater against the Bucks.

Hustlenomics

2007-01-08T21:30:00.000-08:00

Observe the wonderment before you read on.

Now that we've gotten our brief moment of wonderment at the Italian Stallion out of the way, we can move onto the real true subject of this post.
Let it never be said that Lamar Blogom didn't tip its cap to the hustlaz on the block. By that I mean all the real bangers floating around the league, the Patron Saint of which would have to be either Charles Oakley or the entire Bad Boys Pistons roster sans Isiah.

For all of my enamorment with the flashy O, some solid rebounding and general bad-dude stuntin gets my juices flowing almost as much. In most cases, shit goes overrecognized by announcers and sports columnists, and occasionally general managers (see Rose, Malik), but I would be completely in the wrong to dismiss hustlin' as a Right-Way-only facet of the most beautiful game.
Hustling, as a rule, creates the anti-stars sports writers slurp up like milk when they feel particularly vengeful towards the YB+F folks that create their profession. Feel like the star's mistreating you? Go talk to the grimy hustle dude at the end of the bench who sees the floor only to clean the glass. There's a reason that they're described as workmanlike; they're basically overpaid janitors.

But here I am blasting the very same people I promised to glorify with this shit. Let the beatification begin now.

I said earlier that hustling typically creates anti-stars who then become stars in their own right because they aren't paid a hundred million dollars, but then they get silly multi-year contracts for big bucks when their entire use in the first place was that they were cheap. I say that because it's like 90% true. However, the notable exceptions do exist.
Emeka Okafor and Dwight Howard are the most noticeable of these exceptions, at least in the current NBA. In both cases, neither is overburdened with especially silky post moves on which to fall back on (Chris Bosh). In both cases, they aren't such physical specimens that they become unguardable at least in part to their sheer physical size or strength (Shaq-fu). In both cases, they score a majority of their points on plays where they make a concerted effort to get the ball in a position where they can scratch their way to success.

In Howard's situation, the lack of a polished post game can be at least partially attributed to his overall rawness; he's basically a colt out on the court. I guess some of his success is indeed due to his physique, but a lot of it happens simply because he wants it more than the next dude. A great part of watching his development into a truly unstoppable force is watching those unsanded corners evolve into the smooth curves of one truly in tune with his given position. Now that I'm saying this I realize that he will probably become a nemesis when he sheds his youthfulness.

Okafor, on the other hand, has no excuse as readily available as Howard's youth and lack of college experience. Dude was a 4-year senior who played big minutes in the big time well before he crossed some state lines into Charlotte. Despite his experience in a great program and starring in the Big Dance, Okafor was all hustle (baby.) Typically those types of players crash and burn if they're expected to shoulder any kind of load at all on an NBA team, regardless of location or status.
But Okafor once again beat the odds. He's generally recognized as a franchise-type defensive player, and maybe-kinda-sorta getting there on offense. But, watch a Bobcats game (hard, I know) and you will see a man totally defined by his will to live. A truly low-rent version of Okafor is available in Los Angeles, who goes by the name of Ronny Turiaf, although he might fit more in the Dennis-Rodman-mold than the Charles-Oakley-type.

Nowitzness

2007-01-07T19:36:00.000-08:00

It's hard, but not entirely impossible, to believe that in this blog's 50 post existence, Dirk has been mentioned a grand total of 0 times.

The Mavs acquired Nowitzki in what will be remembered as right up there with Vlade-Kobe in terms of utilizing the rape stick. Tractor Traylor (for whom they acquire Nowitz) is a fine, compelling player who happens to resemble a bowling ball, but he is most certainly not a future hall of famer, nor is he the greatest (debatably) international player ever. Nowitz is all two of those things.

Nowitz' game upon entering the league was basically the same as Vladimir Radmanovich's is now. He hung around the 3 point line shooting J's, only wandering into the key as an incidental; maybe to finish on fast breaks or grab a stray rebound.Unlike Radmanovich, Dirk kept improving, and improving, and improving. The bookon Dirk circa 03-04 was that he could be contained with a smaller defender (a la Bruce Bowen) who could get in his face on the outside J and keep his increasingly excellent driving game in check.

But, as is the story with Dirk, he stepped his game up and developed an efficient back to the basket game. At this point, he's basically unguardable when his jumper is falling, and the Mavericks are a terrific team for it.

HIBACHI!

2007-01-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

Happy Kwanzaa and New Years from Lamar Blogom, which has finished its holiday hiatus (finally) and will be back on a semi-regular posting schedule. Among my resolutions is at least 3 quality posts a week, with an option for a fourth depending on homework load.

Anyways.

We've discussed AgentZero 6 times, this one the most in depth of them all. He is quite simply far and away the most singular and awesome player in the NBA. His game could be easily pigeonholed into that of a shoot-first, pass- (and ask questions-)later PG that Mamba of all people accused of being sans conscious.
Gilbert's game could be described as a more perfect extension of the steez originated by the Answer. He has that same sort of funky-freshness and feel-good little man aura about him, along with an insatiable urge to get the fuck to the bucket, but he also cops some serious juevos AI lacks when it comes to shots outside the 3-point line.

Here's something else important: GILBERT'S IN HIS 5TH YEAR!

As Peter, my spiritual cowriter, points out--he's only beginning to flash some serious scoring ability. Last season could be described as the one where he exploded onto our oily stage, and 06-07 is just a confirmation of his gunnerly goodness. Dude got snubbed twice last year: once at the ASG, and once by the Olympic team. He basically vowed revenge on the entire league (and specifically the Suns and Blazers, against whom he pledged to average 50 ppg) and backed his shit up--averaging over 30 since he was left off the All-Star team, and scored 54 against the Suns in his only outing opposite McMillan or D'Antoni.

Gilbert's dagger against the Bucks is only an extension of what all of us here at Lamar hope will become the type of legend we tell to our grand kids while we bounce their asses on our knees and try to ignore the arthritis. If you watch the ESPNews feed, you are not only treated to the announcer yelling "HIBACHI" like it's the only word he knows in the damn language, but also a brutal scowl Gil flashes for approx. 1 second after dropping the Bucks to their knees. Then the man is nothing but smiles as he walks towards his bench and the signature jersey toss.

His game is the purest form of gunnership. By that I mean that he has that sort of star quality where the defense matters only as an incidental. Gil has to work harder than maybe Kobe or TMac does, but he's different than they are in that he plays the game of basketball as if it's totally incidental to whatever else he's doing that night.

Perhaps another reason we find Gilbert so appealing is that he has a little bit of child left in him. Sure he has his occasional bouts of petulance involving a lot of assists and not too much scoring, followed by the opposite, but he also has the sort of sublime quality of figuring out the game as he goes along. This in direct opposition to his Division-mate Dwyane Wade, who seemingly has the game on lock every time he steps onto the floor. Not to say that Gilbert doesn't have more than his share of swagger (and outright cockiness), but his confidence comes and goes. When it is there, he heats up like the Hibachi Grill that he so espouses. When it's not, dude could be a Frigidaire for how he trots around the court.

AgentZero is also childish in his actions outside the court.

(I should clarify that when I say childish I don't mean immature and shits himself. What I do mean is that he has some serious child-savior vibes happening around him, including his innocence w/r/t traditional means of playing basketball.)

Rather than spend time with teammates out on the town, Gilbert chooses to stay in his hotel room and order things from infomercials. Now tell me that there isn't some part of every one of us that wants to just sit around and buy supersharp knives and other errata. In fact, that same proclivity for infomercial ordering has probably manifested itself in what was for a long time his trademark shout of Hibachi.

Drop it like it's hot

2006-12-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or are medics across both nations working serious overtime these days:

Bosh goes out indefinetly 8 days ago with a knee injury. He is apparently back practicing
TMac is walking around with his annual back injury. Out indefinetly since the 12th.
Lamar has a well-documented issue with his knee.
The Big Chinese Person fractures his medial tibial plateau. Not his knee, as Uncle Tim points out. Gone for 6 weeks.
Monta Ellis, Yay Area hero, hurts his shoulder in last night's game.
Josh Smith has hernia surgery, gone for four weeks.
Nenad Krstic shreds his anterior cruciate ligament. Done for the year.
Sam.i.am w/plantar fasciitis, could sit out a few games.

In a related note, have a very Merry Xmas watching the G.O.A.T. duking it out with Public Enemy #1.

EDIT: Observe Dan le Batard's excellent profile on KB24. More on that later.

Gangsta Gangsta

2006-12-19T16:22:00.000-08:00

Legiterally hours after Stop Snitchin' and JR were removed from the Nuggets lineup, the Nuggets go out and find an Answer resting on the scrap heap. Billy King did not fail to dissapoint, taking back a confusing medley of players (1.e. Joe Smith + Andre Miller) and a couple of 1st rounders.

This is w/o doubt the second most exciting destination for A.I., finishing just behind Minnesota on the Pump-o-Meter. While their status as the ultimate brawling team was somewhat in doubt as far as their status in the all-time annals, this move cements their #1 spot. Answer brings toughness+willingness to sacrifice whatever it takes to drag his teammates into the storied land.
Think about this for a second before you talk about team chemistry, and how Melo and Ivey will have a tough time adapting to each other: A.I. has been busting his ass up and down the court for about 5 years w/o a single teammate worthy of his lofty stature. Now, picture him w/a bunch of quality teammates sorely in need of an offensive boost now that Options 1 and 2 are suspended for 15 and 10, respectively. It's true that there will be 2 learning curves for Iverson, one w/o Melo and JR, one w/both in full effect.

Before you write this entire move off as stupid on both parties, consider that Iverson has nothing but desire to win. I have not doubt that not only will he not fuck this situation up by playing petulant/former frustrated alpha dog, but in fact he will embrace his role as perhaps the second banana. Or maybe Melo and A.I. will figure a unique way to share the ball and scoring responsibility in a way that benefits both of them in a quest for a championship. I would hope that they can form some kind of alliance that results in both of them scoring obscene amounts on the same court, with JR picking up the rest of the point-scoring tab.

While I don't yet know how that will work, it's my sense that Melo might start spending more time on the perimiter, allowing Iverson ample room for his barely controlled drives toward the rim. Although this trade still leaves Denver bereft of shooters, it should allow them to play at what has become the league's fastest pace with a premier PG/SG running the show.

BLACK SUNS BABY!

Don't never blink

2006-12-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

Step away for a moment and look at what you miss:

Kobe goes for 45 and AgentZero explodes for 60 on the same court. Lamar (the blog + the person were rightfully ecstatic.
Brawl @ MSG.

As a subhead to Item 2, Melo gets slapped w/15 games, JR Smith w/10, and NateRob w/10.

All these suspensions represent a concerted effort by Stern + co. to make a move away from the gangsta-ism repped so heartlessly by A.I., Melo, and even Isiah in his playing days. The brawl itself seems like pretty minor spat; the only thing even vaguely remarkable was Melo pimp-slapping Mardy Collins then backpedaling away from Jared Jeffries for the length of the floor.

I don't particularly understand why Melo got hit with such a large suspension when it was clearly Napoleon complex'd NateRob that pushed the whole damn altercation to a level that passed what would have been appropriate for the foul. JR was clearly restrained and everything was on the verge of calming down when NR came in and blew that shit up.

If anything, Melo's suspension is justified for the sheer stupidity of it. How do you smack the worst player on the Knicks for yapping at you? Point up to that Jumbotron and remind him not only do you (a) earn more money in a single year than he will in his life (b) just ran his squad off the court and (c) starred in a ridiculous "Stop Snitchin" gang video straight out of Ballimore.
To be honest, this whole thing was more than a little disappointing. The Nuggets have arguably the best brawling squad in the NBA, bar none. Perhaps the 04 Pacers could give them a run for their money, but the Nugs have some serious bangers, which fall into a few main categories:

Hood: Melo, JR Smith, K Mart (when healthy)
Foreigners: Eduardo Najera, Nene (seems like a monolith. a badass monolith.)
Guys Not Particularly Dangerous on the Surface but Make You Vaguely Nervous: Marcus Camby, Earl Boykins

Name another team with a lineup that can even pretend to compete w/them. Simmons says the Wiz come close, and I guess I buy that just b/c Gil seems like he has only a vague idea of what's happening at any given time and so could be superdangerous. Even if he decided that the fight was the perfect time for a powernap.

Our logo falls into the dust.

2006-12-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to me, but Lamar crumpled like so many cards in a win against the Rockets on Tuesday night.

His fall from the ranks of Lakerland for at least a month could return the Lakes to their last year's paradigm: Kobe scores every time down while the rest of the team takes in his spectacle.

Don't get me wrong; Mamba is perhaps the G.O.A.T. and probably already is with regards to scoring the basketball. However, the evolution of the Lakes into a multifaceted attacking machine was among the more thrilling aspects of this 1/4 done year.

To a large extent, Lamar enabled their startling push into importance. He seemed energized by the death of his infant son. Perhaps his all-encompassing grief finally enabled him to begin to fathom the almost limitless death of his talents. Or, it could be that another year of Phil Jackson was and is causing the Lakers to come together like so many Beatles.The long term effects of Odom's injury could prove more deadly than losing Kobe for a similar span of time. Not to suggest that Odom is more valuable than Mamba. Quite the opposite--his status as 2nd best is what makes this injury so devastating.

Take tonight's game against the Mavericks as a prime example. Mamba dominated the Q3, but as the Lakers fell further and further back as 4Q went on, there was no-one to help Kobe to shoulder the load. Had Kobe been injured, a kind of communal spirit would have been in effect; since there would have been no focal point at which the Mavericks could direct their defensive onslaught, they would have instead been forced to contend with the very real possibility of points coming from anywhere on the floor. As it was, Kobe was reduced to wild heaves with an only theoretical possibility of bringing his team back into it.
The Lakers are not an elite team yet, but Lamar's multifaceted goodness pushed them constantly in the direction of the sanctity of a Top-5 seed. It remains to be seen whether or not they can weather his stormy absence from the court, but never underestimate the wizardry of the man in the suit.

Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K

2006-12-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

On the news front:

I guess the Ivey trade is superbig news after all. The trade machine makes its season debut, allowing me to while away the hours until Iverson finds his new home.
Luke Walton is the second most popular Laker with the ladies. Him and Kobe. Wow.
Amare Stoudemire is like 95% back--observe his performace against NJ on Friday.
The leather is back.

That is all.

The Answer Cometh

2006-12-08T23:04:00.000-08:00

Fresh off denying Jerry Sloan his 1,000th, KG drops a bombshell I certainly didn't see coming.
For those too lazy to click through, here's what it is:

"Bring it on, I love 'The Answer," Garnett said Friday night. "We welcome A.I. with open arms. Where's Kevin McHale?"

Whoa.
I have to admit that I'm not entirely ready for this pairing to happen just yet. Simmons claims that KG is the ultimate second banana, whatever that means. He's never truly been a dominant scorer in the purest sense of the word. Also, he's never been a dominant big man, despite being arguably the best in the game.

His versatility is his ultimate downfall. KG resembles Lamar a lot in that regard; he is perhaps tortured by his ability to do so much, that he settles for less than the sum of his parts. For Garnett, this is less true than it is for Lamar, but the concept lurks just below the surface.

Were he to focus on any one aspect of his game, he might morph into a more dominant, more perfect player than he already is. However, it is that dangerous element of raw imperfection that lends KG's game its indisputable charm. He isn't shackled to the post like so many of his predecessors and prodecessors.Garnett isn't easily comparable to anyone in particular. If anything, he is the idealized image of what Fab5-era CWebb should have been. Minus the boneheaded timeout calls, the petulance, and plus some insane competitive fervor.

The Answer brings many of the same elements to the table. He is a non-traditional player in a very real sense of the word; upon NBA entry, he violated every conceivable rule of style and etiquette both on the court and off on his way to becoming the Best 6-Footer Ever (caps definitely necessary.)

Like KG, he brings an insatiable desire for victory onto the floor, as well as the skills and motivation to sacrifice every inch of his frail humanity to achieve that success.

However, he differs from Garnett in his desire to score the damn ball. While KG sometimes seems vaguely content to exist w/in the flow of the offense, AI Creates his own flow on the fly. Sometimes he realigns some inviolable tenets of The Right Way while doing so, but so be it. Maybe all Garnett needs to reach his own personal promised land is a little bit of hood flavor.

Stand up and give thanks

2006-11-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

Lamar Blogom celebrates its first Thanksgiving with a feast fit for a king. The seazon has so far yielded bountiful treasures with the promise of many more to come. So, we list 24 things that we are thankful for:

Andrew Bynum becoming Big Pussy and flashing strands of future greatness.
ATLanta proving that you can win games with a roster of only people 6'7" or 6'8".
The Heat collapsing in on themselves like some kind of aging supernova.
Starbury's Starburies.
Nate Robinson swatting Yao Ming.
Yao Ming, best center in the league.
Kevin Garnett, tortured soul in search of absolution.
Amare's return.
Josh Smith.
Gerald Wallace.
Brendan Haywood's favorite movie is Coming to America.
CP3 and Weezy F. Baby bringing back the N.O.
Chris Bosh making game winning 3s.
Don Nelson taking over the Yay Area.
Monta Ellis.
Jerry Sloan fashioning a sleek new version of Old School.
Kaveman's hair.
TMac is healthy.
Darko (almost) dominant.
Grant Hill's ankles are intact.
Mamba's newfound efficiency.
JR Smith, NBA starter.
Ron Ron is still playing.
Lamar Odom beginning to fathom his own depths.

Pleasures abound

2006-11-23T00:36:00.000-08:00

Tuesday was a special time in Lamar Blogom history; it was the first game ever attended with Lamar distinctly in mind. Of course, he decided to freak the joint up.

Someone who did the opposite of freak the joint up was Mamba. We've discussed him before, way back in June of 2006 A.D. What we did not discuss is his insane artistry and newfound efficiency. His knee surgery, which sidelined him for the first two games of this year and still probably continues to limit him even as he composes his unique art on the basketball court. While he usually paints masterpieces full of fluidity and graceful brushstrokes, it is as if he has been handed watercolors with which to replicate the Mona Lisa.

After he drove Shaq from the mix, the masses decried him as a traitorous snake in the grass. He remains a petulant force to be contended with--see Game 7 of last year's 1st round for example--but despite or perhaps because of his balance of maturity and childishness Mamba rises above the hapless flocks with his scoring genius.

His 2004 was of disastrous proportions, aided and abetted by the non-factor of Rudy Tomjonavich and his later illness-induced substitute Frank Hamblen. Reunited with the Wizard of Hollywood, Mamba saw his star rise anew, outshining even his former Shaq-fu-aided greatness. At times he seemed to transcend the sport itself as he glided about the hardwood, throwing in baskets from insane angles with approximately half the damn Staples Center in his grill.

Mamba's frenzied bloodlust crested in the month-long stretch in which he dropped 62 and 81 on the Mavs and Raps, respectively. Afterwards, perhaps fueled by his teammates' emergence as a force viable of the master's consideration, he receded slightly from the spotlight. Not to say that he did not still own the court like a lion tamer, but he allowed others to bask in his glorious glow as he gallivanted about on his holy quest.
Shaq-fu was the first of the legendary duo to recapture former glory without the other, but he did so at the hands of the Devil himself, Dwyane Wade. The referees aided and abetted Shaq in his quest for greatness. They did no such favor for his former teammate and nemesis, as he found himself robbed of a game-changing bucket in the waning moments of Game 1.

That is beside the point. The point is that even as Mamba finds himself limited by a bum knee and tough conference, he will reinvent himself and his teammates to rise above the unwashed horde in a quest for absolution. Perhaps it won't come this season, but as Andrew "Big Pussy" Bynum grows and matures along with Turiaf the Beast, his conflict will be resolved with a success so resounding as to shake the foundations of the sport to their core.

If a homey's still moving, he's holding it down

2006-11-16T17:40:00.000-08:00

Alright, I admit that the title of this post is quoting Lil' Wayne's fiery track "Georgia Bush". I also admit that "homey" was a completely different word in the track, a word that shouldn't be tossed around by whitey.

The subject of this post isn't the revitalization of N.O., nor is it something about the durrrty in general. No, Lamar throws his gaze to Phila, where AI is currently keeping it real as shit. A teenage was shot because he refused to give up his Answer jersey to a group of ruffians, and now Answer is paying for his funeral. Among all the things A.I. has done in his career, this is without a doubt the most noble and selfless. Well, duh.

We've talked about Iverson before, but in the context of Team USA and their doctrine of dominance. Now, his relationship to the Lig at large is examined.

I've never enjoyed watching Allen Iverson. Perhaps it's the Finals appearance against my beloved Lakers in 2001, or maybe I harbor some latent feelings of supressed racism, but his game is generally without aesthetic merits as far as I'm concerned.

That does not mean that he is without import to the Lig. Entirely the opposite--because he makes whitey so uncomfortable by fearlessly repping his thug/gangsta image, he is demonized in whatever he does. The conventional wisdom is that he doesn't share the ball enough because he's too "street," or that he hot-dogs too much for his own damn good.
One of those criticisms is perhaps true: for all his merits, Iverson didn't tend to share the ball around a whole lot until two years ago. But both deny the man's insane toughness and win-at-all-costs sensibility. Iverson should, by all rights, be revered by the Right Way NBA for his bulldog mentality. Dude tosses his 6'0"-and-skinny frame into the fires of war each and every time he rides onto the hardwood, but cannot shake the demonic marker that has been so cruelly placed upon his slender shoulders. No matter how hard he attacks the bucket, he will forever be regarded as a ballhog showoff who just happens to have played for some damn good basketball teams.

When Larry Brown, that paragon of righteous basketball, helmed the 76ers, Iverson was faced with a constant battle. Although Brown clearly acknowledged that Iverson could and should be the only scoring option on the team, there were mighty battles waged in the press between the two. Iverson's famous practice speach is just one small example of their ongoing struggle.

What cannot be ignored about their pairing is that it worked. Kinda. They made the damn Finals in 2001 with nothing beyond Iverson, Aaron McKie, and Dikembe Mutombo on either end of the floor. Iverson did nothing less than single-handedly win every game for the 76ers, dragging them by their struggling hair into some version of the promised land.

They fell short, and Larry was greeting with resounding praise for his fabulous job wringing success from what should have been a fruitless measure. The praise fell upon the wrong head. For all of his flaws, and they are many and multifarious, Iverson holds shit down on the offensive end. Sacrificing your body 82 games (and more) at a time is a measure that should not, by rights, be undertaken by an individual that could be described as shrimpy.

However, because of Answer's heart, lungs, and brains, he does that shit daily, with little help from any of his compatriots.

Can't get up like you need Viagra

2006-11-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

K-Mart is something of a polarizing presence in the NBA. On the one hand, he is a player whose sucess is predicated on bland hustle and ridiculous bounce. On the other, he was suspended for the playoffs as a result of badmouthing George Karl and the rest of the Nugs in the press.

What no-one can dispute is that he's about to miss the rest of the season with a continuation of knee problems. As anyone who has ever played basketball knows, the knee is key to basic functionality on the court. It is even more key for someone whose value is predicated on the fact that he can jump out the damn gym.
KMart is an interesting player for both systems in which he has played in his career. On the Nets, JKidd uncaged his shit like an animal. KMart is at his best when he acts as a conduit for a more creative force. Most players of his type (explosive bangers with few other basketball skills) are merely paintbrushes for the maestros that they should be playing next to. He was the perfect brush for Kidd's creative style--he's a moderately fast player with bounce out the building.

His lack of other skills are incidental: Kidd has such a catalogue of moves and deceptions, but lacks the ability to score. Perhaps because he feels he should embody the purest of pure points that he so disdains developing a reputable J, but the fact is that his jumper is merely adequate for professional ball. Sure he can make the occaisional 3 or two, but he never takes the game over on the offensive like his Canadian counterpart.It is Kidd's non-presence on the scoring end of the offense that makes KMart such a valuable counterpoint to his oblique attack. Martin was the exlamation point to Kidd's run-on sentence. Kidd is unique in the regard that he had only one means of punctuation available to him both times he went to the Finals. KMart and RJ provide only exclamation points as resolution to Kidd's creations. By contrast, Steve Nash has an arsenal of punctuation at his disposal and finds himself continually short of the perfect story. He can construct a hell of a sentence, but his attack seems sometimes to meander, to lack the incisiveness that so defined the New Jersey championship runs.

KMart was somewhat of a different type player in Mile High. Rather than serving as a piece of creation for a maestro, he was now expected to help define a team with his supreme athleticism. As we have established, he is the type best served to be the subjects of creation, not its master. Martin was hopelessly overmatched in his role, but still managed to bang out some semi-impressive shit. Andre Miller is no Jason Kidd, but his amateur scribblings found an excellent instrument in Martin.

The occaisonal flying slams were interrupted by periods of seemingly unending boredom. Although he's capable of some basic hustle plays (rebounds, diving for loose balls, looking worn out,) KMart was not near the contributor, nor the max-type player that the Nuggets envisioned. Melo's emergence has done nothing to help his case. No longer the top option on offense, KMart was instead forced to contribute on defense only. It wasn't as if he was the greatest #1 option, but he had his damn pride, right?

From thence the explosion came. From thence his knee decided to quit. From thence, the Nuggets are totally fucked.

Coming at you like Adebisi

2006-11-14T15:15:00.000-08:00

We shoulda seen it coming. Dude tosses down a slam to be reckoned with on Shaq-fu and then has the gall to trade elbows with Shaq on his way downcourt. This one play seems to arbit greatness more so than a single game, even more than a single playoff series. It seemed no accident that Bynum took his schooling, sprinted downcourt, and made Shaq-fu his little prison bitch.
Enter this season: the Lakes' two top centers go down with assorted injuries, leaving only the untest Bynum to man the middle. Conventional wisdom says the Lakes are in serious goddamn trouble. Of course, Bynum is destined for greatness.

The only things holding him back are foul-proneness and PhilJax' notorious fickleness when it comes to young players. Bynum is far from a grizzly vet; at this point in his life he might be too full of enthusiam to contribute to a winning effort on a consistent basis. But that enthusiasm that holds him back also drives him forward, making him the semi-unstoppable force that he now is. If he continues to mature (and calm down) he will become what the Bulls only imagined when they called the name Edward Curry way back when.
Dude has an impressive motor, especially at his size. He's 7'0" and seems to have no trouble jumping and rejumping to either board or block with the other bigs. Basically, he's Dennis Rodman in Shaq-fu's body, but without the requisite craziness of the former, or the mumbling monolithicness of the latter. His game is predicated more on the boyish pursuit of acceptance from his teammates than Rodman's Lust for Life or Shaq's big bully dominance.

Bynum's maturation may bring untold wonders, or it may drag him down into the depths of Currydom, destroying his boyish joy for the game of basketball along with its mellowing and seasoning effects. If he can find some way to convince PhilJax to play him more often, perhaps that enthusiasm will remain, though tempered by the dulcet tones of sweet experience.

P.S. Andrew is in serious need of a nickname. Comment with you ideas.

Fix What Ails Ya

2006-11-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

The ATL makes up for its constant musical rennaissance by being somewhat of a dead spot for professional sports--at least of late. The Braves saw their million year run as objects of dominance come to a crashing close, Mike Vick alternates athletic ascendancy with moments of purest trash, and the Hawks have fallen like stones ever since the Human Highlight Reel took his talents elsewhere.

Here at Lamar Blogom, we do not concern ourselves with the trivialities of baseball or football (and certainly not hockey or NASCAR). That leaves one possible topic of discussion; the STATlanta Hawks.
The Hawks represent an interesting paradox--nearly everyone on their roster is between the heights of 6'5" and 6'9", which includes the mean NBA height. (I think its somewhere around 6'6", just below 6'7".) The point is that their roster is composed entirely of the type of slasher/banger that so defines what is good and pure about NBA basketball. Unfortunately, the Hawks have found that with a roster with such a unique composition that competition in this NBA is damn near impossible. Three times in the last three years, they have floundered somewhere below mediocracy, with only small steps toward achieving that legitimacy that every organization strives for. Yes, even the Knicks.

Yes, they have screamed out the gate like a damn freight train this year, with Joe Johnson behaving like a latter day Kobe, Josh Smith getting his freak on (I recommend searching "Josh Smith putback" on YouTube and observing the majesty), and Speedy ClaxTron holding shit down from the point guard position. But we must ask ourselves how long they can keep up the kind of breakneck pace typically reserved for future NBA champions.

But, we came here to bury Caesar, not to praise him. So begins the season, now find out how it should continue.The Hawks need to completely revolutionize three spots on their roster: PG, PF, and C. They must cast down Shelden Williams, Zaza Pachulia, and relegate the ClaxTron to the bench where he belongs. The changes I am about to lay out are not easy, nor should the be construed as such. Rather, they are the type of high-risk, high-reward manuevers that Belkin et. al. should be engaging in right about now.

#1: Get Shaun Livingston.

I said this shit wasn't gonna be easy, and this is certainly the least easy of any of the suggestions I'm laying out. It is, however, the most significant. In acquiring Livingston, the Hawks would be getting themselves a dude who knows how to distribute, knows how to run, and knows how to be a physical freak. Dude is a 6'7" PG, which molds perfectly with the stringent characteristics required for future Hawkdom. To get him, it's probably gonna cost an unprotected 1st rounder and a valuable piece. They should do it at the drop of the hat--he would give their offense purpose and direction by his very existence on the floor. Also, he's 6'7". Ridiculous.

#2: Lay hands on J.R. Smith.
This facet of their plan will be significantly easier than part no. 1. Smith has a rep as a undisciplinable free spirit obsessed with his own stats and tossing down incredible dunks. In reality, most of this is probably true, but the Hawks should pair him up with the man who could very well be his brother in disguise. In the process, they'll fuck up anybody even moderately confused at the distinction between JSmoove and J.R. Also, they grab someone fairly deadly from 3, someone who flies out the building, and someone else who's 6'7". Start him alongside Shaun, Joe, Josh, and the Center to be Named Later or bring his bad self off the bench, he will bring another superathletic, young body to terrify the other team with.

#3: The Center Position
There's some debate circling about Lamar Blogom HQ about how exactly they should solve their woes at the 5 spot. The list is down to 5 candidates (appropriately):

Tyrus Thomas
Stromile Swift
Boris Diaw
Lamar Odom
Chris Wilcox

Each has their own special strengths and flaws. Of the set, Stro would be the easiest to come by. He, however, brings a rep for being a big softy and not praciticing hard enough to make a tangible difference in a game. If the Hawks can harness his multifarious talents, they would have a testament to the athleticism of the human body on their hands.

They could go in another direction, acquiring a toolsy amoeba-type like Diaw or Odom to hold down the middle. These two both have the skillset to distribute the ball, set screens, rebound, and occaisionally score their own selves when the time comes. I know Diaw used to be a Hawk. Bad on them, and they should try their damndest to wring him away from the Suns.

If they fail in all of these quests except the one for Swift, they may consider it a victory if they can harness his considerable talents into a being that bangs on the offensive end of the floor, swats on the defensive end, and generally is just a complete badass.

NBA Eve

2006-10-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

On the eve of the NBA season, we witness the passing of a legend. As tragic as his demise is, I have no frame of reference other than that provided by the occasionally good Sports Guy.

The man's death is tragic; no-one has meant more (sports-related) to a city probably ever. The only one who comes close is Larry Bird. Notice how all of these are in Boston.

Is that because Boston is so depressing that only sports give it meaning?

Or is it that Bill Simmons is the only column I read that deals with this shit?

We report, you decide.

* * *

City-wide days of mourning aside, a truly joyous time is about to happen on earth. Kicking off in Miami and LA, the season starts with two tantalizing matchups. Both match Conference Finalists against their first round opponents and both involve seriously talented 2-guards.

That's where the similarities end. Miami should be (in Lamar's estimation) the most hated champion in recent memory, whereas Phoenix will be (hopefully) the most loved in the near future. The Lakers and Bulls are both former products of that 90s-Early 00s star-centric system that placed a premium on acquiring one or two players with limitless talent and surrounding them with semi-crappy but cheap players.

If anything, the Suns take the Jordan Mandate to an extreme unrelated to it and yet ultimately so. Their #1 superstar is a formerly floppy-haired Canuck obsessed with the possibility that he can be defined not by supernatural gifts of his own, but rather that he gathers his worth from making the mundane abilities of his teammates somehow transcendent of the basketball norm.

The Suns revolve around Nash, but at the same time control him. He is Frankenstein, he creates the monster, but ultimately the monster makes its master the slave.

Because the Suns revolve so much around a singular star, one might say that they fit the Jordan Mandate perfectly, but that ignores the essential reality of Sunsiness.

Sunsiness means that they are more than the sum of their parts. They assemble a whole that functions together as a whole, but to which one part is so integral that without it the entirety of the system would collapse.

Nash is not only the defining factor of the Suns factory, but he is also the one most victimized by its existence as a seamless entity. Nash is defined by the Suns system--run and shoot, shoot and run--and struggles not to overcome it. He is nothing more than a worker in the Suns farm, and yet he owns the farm himself.

SLAM 102

2006-10-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

This is turning rather rapidly into a Gilbert Arenas fanblog of sorts, and guaranteed that it will be shifted away from him rapdily once the seazon starts (6 days?!), but damn if this tat on the cover of SLAM 102 isn't holding shit down in a major way:
You can head on over to FreeDarko to pick up your copy of the new FD shirt. "Es La Pata Del Diablo" means literally "He is the leg of the Devil," but it translates more as one who likes to play pranks. So, there's that.

Two seasons too late, but...

2006-10-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

The Dungeon Family literally is the Phoenix Suns.

What's Gilbert Wearing?

2006-10-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

Peep the new Wizards unis (just press play.)

Fairly fab, including the fashion expert and Phil Chenier pulling some vaguely uncomfortable banter with the anchor.

Also interesting is Chenier's commentary on the new ball.

The First in a Series of Season Preview Chats Between the Two Creators

2006-10-18T21:01:00.001-07:00

BOBDUCK: ay: let's make t-shirts

PMAC: shawn marions face

PMAC: thats it

PMAC: somehow that represents it

BOBDUCK: lamar fucking odom nukk

BOBDUCK: shawn is good

BOBDUCK: lamar is basically a deity though

PMAC: too bad amare flies

PMAC: literally

PMAC: dude got wings

BOBDUCK: lamar do

PMAC: should call him hermes

BOBDUCK: i know

BOBDUCK: that dude kind of more like achilles

PMAC: tro

BOBDUCK: dino thug is my 2nd favorite of 2003

BOBDUCK: darko being #1

PMAC: haha

PMAC: melo? bron bron?

PMAC: WADE

PMAC: your boy

BOBDUCK: wade is far from my homey

PMAC: i know

BOBDUCK: melo and bron bron are my homeys

BOBDUCK: but darko is my homey

PMAC: hes kinda fake tho

BOBDUCK: homey is literally g

PMAC: to be honest i aint that amped

BOBDUCK: he's legit diaw-steez

BOBDUCK: in terms of breakouts

BOBDUCK: he might be rough in the 1st half

BOBDUCK: but in the 2nd half

BOBDUCK: him and horseboy bout to bangstick like nem-but

PMAC: too bad diaw is legit

BOBDUCK: bout to be best frontcourt since wallace/wallace

BOBDUCK: darko is legit

BOBDUCK: but for different reasons

PMAC: i guess

BOBDUCK: that nukka diaw tight

BOBDUCK: he slasher and passer and shit

PMAC: yea

PMAC: he has a weird playing style tho

PMAC: na mean

BOBDUCK: darko is more top of the key j bones

BOBDUCK: tro, tro

BOBDUCK: diaw a guard in a 6'8" big man's body

BOBDUCK: he like tony parker if t parks was huge

PMAC: yea

BOBDUCK: they have a lot of the same skillset

BOBDUCK: but for some reason diaw can't play guard

BOBDUCK: maybe he's too slow?

BOBDUCK: you think the suns are going all the way?

PMAC: yup

PMAC: diaws just a tad too tall

BOBDUCK: he's only 6'8"

PMAC: and the suns dont need that form ho

BOBDUCK: the suns seem to create their own convention

PMAC: yea

BOBDUCK: but at this point it's fairly mundane

BOBDUCK: i think amare is gonna have an up and down year

BOBDUCK: if he's back by the playoffs though...

PMAC: i hope its all up

PMAC: he still has bounce

BOBDUCK: back like all the way

PMAC: ive been watching the preseason

PMAC: he averaged like 46 vs the mavs two years ago

PMAC: like no exageration

PMAC: over 6 games

BOBDUCK: dern

PMAC: he was DICKIN

BOBDUCK: achilles can fly

PMAC: capita D

PMAC: yep

BOBDUCK: but its that knee

PMAC: im not too worried

BOBDUCK: and he probably is a little out of place still

BOBDUCK: been away for a year

BOBDUCK: from the offense+defense i mean

PMAC: maybe

PMAC: but the suns will get to the playoffs wether hes there or not

PMAC: so he has 82 games to get back

BOBDUCK: oh, no doubt

PMAC: its not like their season rests on him

PMAC: which is nice

PMAC: like for kobe, no adjustment period allowed

PMAC: but i will say that jordan farmar is lookin pretty baller so far

BOBDUCK: that's what i hear

BOBDUCK: not too much optimism he'll take that shit from smush though

BOBDUCK: which is fairly tragic

PMAC: whatever

BOBDUCK: for all smush's magical bounciness, he is low-key bad

PMAC: at least when smush gets his usual 8 bangs + 89 turnovers, farmar will be a sold backup

BOBDUCK: yeah

PMAC: and turaif + bynum looking good too

BOBDUCK: if smush could get a j he would be better

PMAC: lakers squad actually looking low key nice

PMAC: i wont even lie

PMAC: smush actually cashes tres tho

BOBDUCK: laker squad looking aight only because of pjax

BOBDUCK: they're probably like 47 wins

BOBDUCK: maybe 50 if someone else steps the fuck up

PMAC: i actually say fiddy

PMAC: plus they got radmon

BOBDUCK: bynum needs to be good right quick

PMAC: another big thug

PMAC: wit a j

BOBDUCK: he's basically brian cook version 1.1

PMAC: turiaf still his usual too-amped-for saftey self

PMAC: admit brian cook is shit

PMAC: and cant dunk

BOBDUCK: brian cook can shoot some js

BOBDUCK: radman isn't that much better

PMAC: yea, but if he tries to bang hell get hurt

PMAC: radmon is nice

PMAC: he was killing in the playoff

PMAC: s

BOBDUCK: i guess

BOBDUCK: he should start over kwame

BOBDUCK: it should be

BOBDUCK: farmar+kobe+lamar+radman+mihm

PMAC: the lakers bench, no matter who starts, may be one of the best in the L

BOBDUCK: hmm

PMAC: no chance farmar starts

BOBDUCK: i would take some issue with that

BOBDUCK: i wish he would though

PMAC: think about it

BOBDUCK: the suns bench is nice

BOBDUCK: i guess the lakers have a good bench

BOBDUCK: but the mavs are better

PMAC: bench = farmar, bynum, kwame,

BOBDUCK: bynum kinda sucks still

PMAC: they dont have that thug tho

PMAC: the mavs

BOBDUCK: that bang just got you amped

PMAC: that guard

BOBDUCK: devin harris?

PMAC: not j how

PMAC: m

PMAC: the fake ass hair

BOBDUCK: marquis daniels

PMAC: marquis

PMAC: yea

BOBDUCK: he went to the pacers

PMAC: he was kinda tight

BOBDUCK: he's a favorite of mine

PMAC: yea

PMAC: hes underrated

PMAC: pacers bout to be good

PMAC: to bad they have 97 small forwards

BOBDUCK: brb after dinner

PMAC: ok

BOBDUCK: aight nukka

PMAC: i was looking at the pacers roster

PMAC: out of 18 players they have like 8 small forwards

PMAC: ridic

BOBDUCK: dern

BOBDUCK: link me

PMAC: PACERS: Pacers Roster

BOBDUCK: they have decent balance

BOBDUCK: i don't think they're all sfs

PMAC: i guess

BOBDUCK: harrington is more of a pf

PMAC: shawne will, stephen j, james white

BOBDUCK: how fearsome is their starting lineup gonna theoretically be

BOBDUCK: ?

BOBDUCK: j tins

PMAC: yea

BOBDUCK: quis

PMAC: a great vid game squad

PMAC: fa sho

PMAC: like the knicks

BOBDUCK: stejax

BOBDUCK: harrington

BOBDUCK: jermaine

PMAC: does james white have bounce in 2k7?

BOBDUCK: i ain't know

PMAC: cuz he went thru the legs from the free throw line

PMAC: so he should have 99

PMAC: cuz no one else can do that

BOBDUCK: i ain't checked yet

BOBDUCK: i ain't herd the name until now

PMAC: have u seen that dunk tho?

PMAC: oh

PMAC: ill link u up

PMAC: its INSANE

PMAC: in this vid he misses the thru the legs from free throw

PMAC: but i seen him make it in another one

BOBDUCK: aight

PMAC: i gotta find it

Gillyweed

2006-10-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

First, peep Gilberts' oxygen tent and then take a gander at a blog I can only assume is dedicated to him. There is so much to say about the man who has established himself and reigns as among the lig's most enigmatic, so Ima try to lay some of it down.Gilbert has long been a hero to those fine folks over at FreeDarko, and for good reason. He is among the most interesting and complex ever to play the game.

For example: he was arrested this summer for standing beside his teammate as he was being charged with disorderly conduct. The twist: it was in the midst of a crowded Miami street.

Gilbert seems unregulated by the laws that normally permeate the game of basketball. When others zig he zags. Case in point: in the first round last year the Wizrds were inbounding with a chance to send the game to overtime. He took the ball midway between the three point line and half court and shot it.

Normally that is a moment reserved for the NBA player one might classify as slightly retarded. But with Gilly, it was a simple fact that he would take that shot. Whether or not it went in was semi-irrelevant. By even attempting such a ridiculous J, Gilbert proved that he is once again on a plane not higher than any, but seperated from all.

The shot did go in. Of course it did; what else can one expect out of Gilly?

His choice of literature (Harry Potter) reflects the fantastical world he lives in. The world where he can cover his shoes with Scotch tape. The world where it's perfectly acceptable for a man who depends on his ankles for life can wear low-top shoes and have no adverse consequences. It is a world all his own.

Mannequin Love

2006-09-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

The Saints cast off the pall hanging over the great city today, helping (hopefully) to finally revitalize an urban area long overdue for a change in the dialogue surrounding it.

Of course, this gives Lamar the perfect time and opportunity to discuss what's been kicking around in his brain since Randy Moss and T.O. started raising hell in the NFL.

The point is this: football players are entirely products of the system in which they play. So much so that it is impossible to divest any specific player from the team he is currently playing for, or to imagine his fit in any other system. The loss of individual identity is partially due to the lack of trades in, but that lack of trades is due more to the dehumanizing aspects of the most violent sport.

If basketball is a uniquely postmodernist game, football is a modernist product of the Industrial Revolution.

Basketball contents itself with finding the partial and half-truths that dominate the court every time 10 men set their soles on it. The ins and outs of the season lend themselves to experimentation in a quest for ultimate knowledge that forever remains just beyond our grasp.

The Right-Wayers would have you believe that there is a single truth to the way the game should be played, but their ideals have been exposed as unstable as any Fundamentalist sects'. More than anything else, the "point" of every NBA season remains the same: there are interesting and unique ways to win games. Whether or not those methods translate to championships is still under debate--the Mavericks' radical collapse in the NBA Finals struck a blow to those ready to declare a New World Order.

However, football is still dominated by the conglomeration of talents to a degree disgusting to all but Larry Brown and a select cadre of 300-pound Goliaths intent on sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

The helmets play a small role in increasing this anonymity, but what makes football such a coach's medium is the sheer number and mass of those involved. The NBA lends itself more to balletic compositions simultaneously reminiscent of the hood and opera house, while the NFL replicates the singular grind of major corporate life.

It is perhaps ironic that America would choose to so embrace a sport that celebrates the goalessness of Middle Management in perpetuity, but also perfectly sensible when one considers the glorification of those same employees by the League.

Also important is the fear of progress that football espouses on a weekly basis. The individual is ignored, or perhaps demonized in the quest for an 11-players-working-as-one ideal achievable only in that sport. The Young, Black, and Fabulous mentality that so permeates the NBA is almost completely absent from the football universe save two shining stars: Randal Moss and Terrell Owens. It is no coincidence that those two see their names most often associated with “headcase,” just as Donovan McNabb was considered slightly undesirable until he toned down his free-flowing creativity in the backfield.

Those two are concerned with only one thing: imposing their stamp on whatever game they play by dominating the field in all aspects. I don’t mean dominating in the sense of big-ass-running-back-working-the-clock, but rather dominating in that ethereal sense of the word; affecting all proceedings while having a hand in none.

Neither one touches the ball on every single play they are on the field, but both strike fear into the opposing team because of their ability to rubber-stamp the game as theirs from the moment they lay hands on the pigskin to the moment they flip it to the referee, and perhaps even a little after, depending on how loquacious they find themselves on a given afternoon.

By inspiring this fear, they transcend the sport itself and begin to occupy a higher plane not dissimilar to that of MJ, Dr. J, or Kobe Bean. That higher plane is exactly what football strives to denigrate with each passing snap, beating their will into the turf as behemoths collide.

Football analysts often marvel at the supreme athleticism possessed by these two shining stars, but bemoan their woeful honesty and expression. What these talking heads fail to recognize is that the very honesty that they pour scorn on with their outmoded ideals is a uniquely American ideal: that one man may rise above the rest based on talent alone. Not pedigree, nor politeness, but sheer artistic strength and force of will may triumph over outmoded systems designed to create and maintain a rigid caste system.

If football is a feudal society, Moss and Owens have managed to separate themselves from the commoners. They’ve broken their chains, but none join them in their revolution.

Tru Warier

2006-09-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Before you read, peep the 2010 predictions popping over at the Worldwide Leader. I'm not saying that shit is accurate, or even that most of those involved are experts, but it does reflect a change in the fundamental way that basketball is perceived. At least for the dude that picked the Hawks.
The quandary of one Ronald Artest. On talent and competitive drive alone, he is easily a top 10 player in the NBA. His competitive drive, however, is subverts itself on an almost daily basis. Observe an incident while he was with the Chicago Bulls: while trailing at half-time, Ronald threw rocket chest passes at the wall just above his teammates' heads, all the time remaining mute.

Besides the obvious implications for "team chemistry," his actions in that one incident reflect only one thing: a burning desire. This desire has nothing to do with winning. Rather, Ronald simply seeks always to distance himself from embarrassment and humiliation.

Almost every incident of Ron's career has been a direct or indirect result of not wanting to seem like a bitch when dudes step at him. The brawl in Detroit was and is a perfect example of that. A hard foul sets off a shoving match between Ron Ron and Ben Wallace. Gets broke up, but Artest mosies over to the scorers table and lies down--making like it ain't no thang. Of all the cocky things he could have done, that could be described as the most inflammatory.

He stood up (or lied down) and told the Palace crowd that he was literally unconcerned about the entire incident. All of this was done in a weird way to save face. A lot of NBA players would have sat back down on the bench, or continued the yelling and pushing match happening at midcourt. But Artest chose to make his nonchalance public and brutally honest. He was not to be cowed or made the fool of--if anything, he made Wallace look like the one who lost his cool; the petulant child shoving at the patient dad.

Then, shit got real as fuck. Someone lobbed a bottle at Artest. How else is he going to react? He is the most "Keeping it Real" obsessed dude in the NBA. Even Iverson doesn't do like Ron, because Iverson is secure in his own public image.

Ron has always been, and will always be, obsessed with how he is perceived. It is essential to him that he be thought of first and foremost as a representer: never, never back down. That desire to keep it real usually manifests itself as a strong, almost pathological desire to win. Losing is simply not an option for Ron, the public denial of his worth is too great.

The effects of his realness are also readily apparent in his game: he is a lockdown defender, a great way to avoid humiliation on the playgrounds of NYC. Some dude thinks he's all that, and tries to break Ron off, Ron reacts by making it so the dude simply cannot break him off. His offensive game isn't flashy--he doesn't want to risk a fancy move failing him, or excessive attention being brought to something as transient as offense.

He knows how easily those same offense-first players looked like bitches on the other end of the court. He knows how to keep it real.

Trinity of Dino Thugz

2006-09-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

Fallow no longer

2006-09-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

It is time to break Lamar's silence. In part caused by the general uninterestingness of the Lig this summer (is Bonzi Wells dead?) and in part due to increased workload now that school has rolled around, Lamar has been relatively reticent of late.

No longer.

Consider this the first post of a new era.
AI's denial by USA basketball has to rank either as the number one or two disaster of the summer. Agent Zero's injury/cut/subsequent explosion was bad, but not of the magnitude of the Answer being denied.

Dude busted his ass for Team USA in Athens and is repayed with a curt "Fuck you" when he asked, nay, begged, to be included in Colangelo's grand experiment on the international stage.
The Answer's snub reveals all that we should have seen coming. AI is the quintessence of Young, Black, and Fabulous. Even as he begins to decay, his conrows still hold the threat of unmitigated thuggery in its most primitive form. In short, he is still the most BAMF in the Association, perhaps more than dear Ronald because of his lack of explosion.

Latent energy is more potent than that exposed; his lack of explosion (save the "practice" speech) has dumbfounded a ruling class incapable of viewing Street as anything more than dealing crack and robbing old ladies.
Colangelo's Doctrine of Dominance runs counter to everything AI represents. He is not concerned with dominating the game with shock and awe--big dunks and the like. Rather, he is content to operate outside the normal boundaries of the law. Answer ignores the niche to which he should be regulated, drawing a healthy dose of hate from the right way contingent in process.
His transcendent ignorance is exactly what Team USA needed. It was filled by an essentially Right Way cast of characters--heady folk not as concerned with their stats as the functioning of the team as a whole. Their failure on a world stage is as much of an indictment of the Right Way as Athens was.

That's right, Athens.

Olympics 2004 proved what everyone should have already known. It proved that prejudice against prototypical Young Black Males is the most misguided sentiment of all time; Melo and Lebron barely tasted the floor, while Larry was content to watch his team struggle to adapt to the Right Way that he so cherished.

His inflexibility told us volumes about him and predicted his subsequent failure with the New York Knicks with stunning accuracy.
For all of importance on the world stage, Iverson also tells us about ourselves. He shows us the true nature of the underdog, the one we should all rally behind like so many moths to a flame. He shows us that no matter how big the heart, how big the fight in the dog, there will always be someone around to tell us to hate that dog because it makes them feel insecure in their White Anglo-Saxon Protestant manhood.

Iverson is everything that the Right Way folks tell us should be, but with a casing so repellent to their blinkered gaze as to make them blind to his glory.

Decay

2006-09-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

That's what happened to USA Basketball. I didn't see it coming. Chris Sheridan saw it coming. Whatever.

The reasons for their demise are unclear, maybe it's shooting, maybe it's size inside, maybe it's the philosophy of the coaching staff, but some shit needs to get solved before Athens repeats itself. Hopefully Kobe and Chauncey and Amare can solve these issues.

This is an important commercial and doubles as the last time it was acceptable to like Stephon Marbury

2006-08-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

Right hand men

2006-08-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Koach K and Kolangelo have created a Team USA seemingly unmatched in international competition. Italia came the closest, but ultimately found itself lacking when Carmelo took the opportunity to self-actualize his potential mastery of all things FIBA.

The Doctrine of Dominance K set up since day one has payed its dividends, Team USA looks like an irresistable force moving towards ultimate victory on the world stage. However, the roots of the Doctrine of Dominance draw water from concerning locations.
Their belief that America can continue to dominate the world is one based in an old mode of thinking. It hearkens back to the Two Superpower era of the Cold War, ignoring the fractured and diverse beast that the world stage has become. The United States government faces a similar battle of understanding; unilateralism may have worked in 1992, but it sure as hell won't in 2006.

A key misunderstanding is the assumption that the rest of the world will continue to be cowed by the mere presence of such NBA luminaries as King James, DWyade, and Lo. The world simply does not care. It looks upon such players not as gods, but as the men they are.

When Kolangelo-K realize their error in judgement and addopt a less jingoistic view of the world, America will truly rise to power.

Take down your banners

2006-08-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Team USA shitted all over Australia, Chris Sheridan ran a piece about how the international media was raving about their play, a FIBA World Cup championship seems to be in the cards, and nothing has been decided.

Sure, USA has been nice. But they're no Dream Team, and there are three or four squads still in the tourney that can knock them straight back to Indianapolis. Their run looks like it's gonna proceed as follows:

Round of 8 Germany
Dirk headlines a squad that might be tough to knock out, but they lack depth, and the USA should skate right over them.

Round of 4 Greece
The Greek team is the European champion, and a team that the international community is very interested in seeing America play. They seem more of a challenge than Germany- they're deeper and have more experience in the international game.

Championship Argentina or Spain
Both teams feature NBAers at the top of their lineups. Both are the consensus favorites to upset the US if such an upset is forthcoming. Both have their flaws; Pau looked rattled after playing a physical Serbian squad, and Manu's bitch-ass-travel-and-then-fall-over move doesn't translate well to the international game.

Salute the Flag

2006-08-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Team USA's undefeated drive through the Group stage of the tournament is kind of impressive, sure. Although many could and have predicted such a romp, it was not without its road bumps. Italy gave them a run, even in a rebuilding year. Brazil also tested them, led by Leandrinho Barbosa and lost by less than 10.

While it is a victory of sorts that I would look at such a loss and shake my head, wondering how the opposition came so close, none of these games should have been in doubt. As the commentators mentioned in the Italy game, Argentina and Germany both have larger margins of victory, a good test of overall team excellence.

The USA might be somewhat of a paper tiger; their squad is the most impressive and dominant in the tournament field judged solely on the names involved. However, Koach K's insistence on the pressure man-to-man defense could eventually be their undoing.

While Team USA does have impressive turnover and fast break points numbers, its FG% allowed and opponent's points per game are found lacking. Not to say that such statistics tell the tale of their dominance or downfall, but they do help point in the right direction. America might be better served switching into a zone defense similar to Jim Boeheim's at Syracuse. Maybe the intensity could be ramped up a little, but the 2-3 would force opposing teams into more outside shots. Thus, more long rebounds. Thus, more fast breaks. Thus, more opportunities for LeBron to embarrass people like this:

More tomorrow on the roots of K's and Colangelo's philosophy of dominance.

Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane

2006-08-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Sam Jackson is now the official actor of Lamar.

His work is superb, like in Pulp Fiction.

Also, Motherfucking Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane.

Anyways, on to Drew Gooden.
Drew has a name similar enough to Dwight Budden (featured on a Madden sountrack now beyond memory) that I got their names confused on a consistent basis.

Drew's game is so unremarkable that it becomes remarkable in and of itself. There is no more vanilla player in the whole of the NBA; he rebounds, scores, and intimidates with equal unremarkability. It seems fitting that he would be paired up opposite LeBron--a man destined to be a god among men.

Every hero must have his protection, every night his shining armor. That armor needn't be too flashy; the quality of the hero should be measured by his might, not by his shield.

Not to say that LeBron should press forward with inadequate or antiquated equipment--KG and KB24 have proven such a quest is fraught with nothing but peril and ridicule. Rather, he should wear a suit of armor that does nothing to add nor subtract from his overwhelming splendor.

Drew Gooden, combined with Larry Hughes and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, is a suit so vanilla, so ordinary, that it becomes extraordinary in its regularity. None of those men is capable of dominating a game on his own, allowing LBJ to rise up like the Basketball Mohammed that he is.

This says everything you need to know about USA basketball, especially in these next few weeks

2006-08-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

Microfracture is the new Tommy John

2006-08-02T17:52:00.001-07:00

Amare Stoudemire is the Phoenix Suns. Correction on that: he was and will be the Phoenix Suns.

Quiet simply, he is the second most important and influential big man ever to play in the NBA. Correction: he could be.

If Amare comes back like Jordan, it will be to punctuate a Suns attack that had increasingly become a run-on sentence. There were no periods save the occasional Marion throwdown, but even then his dunks were more of a semicolon. Shooting 3s is terrific and wonderful and great, but what once seperated the Suns from their Supersonic brethren was their ability to halt their attack so that the beast that occupied the middle could take some time out to demolish the rim.

Amare's return could mark the Suns' reclamation from the world of the circus freakshow. Steve Nash's performance in the Playoffs was gutty and spectacular and blah blah blah. His performance carried a bemused smirk as he dribbled around Lakers and Clippers and Mavericks en route to open 3s and layups, but he seemed always on the verge of collapse. Twice he carried his team to Game 7and twice they succeded. However, without Amare, Nash was forced to be a working man's hero, a role he does not embrace.
Amare's return means that Nash can return to the princely duties to which he is more accustomed. No more must he stain his manicured fingernails with grease and sweat as he operates the heavy machinery necessary to win basketball games.

I've got nothing to say

2006-07-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

Now is the dead zone.

Nothing of note happens save the theoretical. Big ups to Free Darko to find rage in the tiniest of things (who knew Jared Jeffries was so polarizing?)

That being said, its time to talk about my sleeper: the Orlando Magic.

Led by Horseboy, the Magic are poised to wrest the Eastern crown from the weakening Heat and suddenly beyond-mortal Pistons. They have the horses--double figuratively--and if JJ Reddick heals up in time to become a decent pro, he could stretch the defense enough for Horseboy to do his damage down low.

An unheralded addition to their lineup is the Great White Mystery of Darko Milicic. Say what you want about him, but he has not had the depths of potential even remotely plumbed. Burying him on the Detroit bench was a bad move, but swapping him for Kelvin Cato was a worse one, especially now that Detroit desperately needs someone of his stature to occupy the middle now that Afroman has departed for the windy city.

(Aside: Is it possible that B-Walls will be picked up by the wind due to the drag created by his 'fro?)
Now is the first year when Grant Hill's health has not determined their contender status. Even if he contracts more knee and ankle disease, Hedo Turkoglu is another defense stretching solution.

Jameer Nelson is one of the best cheap players in the league. Unspectacular on offense, but a steady hand at the point and on defense, Jameer is the not the type of player to lead a team to the promised land. He is, however, exactly the type of player not to lead them away from it.

The Magic are a team in no need of a powerful personality outside of Horseboy, who may or may not harness his skills in time to allow his teammates to jump on his back. And besides, he may not even have to--if Darko shows up as the Dirko we thought him to be way back when Horseboy's load will be dramatically reduced.

The Dirty (Half) Dozen

2006-07-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

Where would a ridiculous team with no basis in reality be without a bench?

Nowhere, that's where.

So for today's column, I give my fantasy soldiers some reserves with which to galavant into battle.

G: Eddie House

Thug sets the world alight like no other when his J drops. He wasn't a world beater in the playoffs, but he's a monster on the way there.

Maybe the Suns needed to work harder to get him open shots, maybe they needed to run him off of screens more, maybe they needed to have him on the floor more often, but something didn't work.

That's why he's on the bench.

G/F: Andre Iguodala

The other AI, a defensive wizard with mad hops and a penchant for throwing down dunks that would make Shawn Kemp say "Damn!"

He deserves a spot on this squad if for nothing other than his hammer blows to the rim, but when you add in the ability to lock down on opposing shooting guards and small forwards, you have a guaranteed spot and a seven year contract.

F: Chris Wilcox

We'll call him the Professor. I think he needs a sweet nickname. Plus, Chris Wilcox just seems like a name for which that nickname is suited.

Nicks aside, he runs the floor, rebounds, blocks, dunks things, and generally creates havock. That type of person is good to have around, especially if he's just coming out of his shell.

His improvement might not be Dwight Howard-esque, but he might develop into a dead man's Amare Stoudemire. Even if he never learns to play defense properly, who wouldn't love to have a supersized dude nicknamed the Professor flying around?

F: Udonis Haslem

If there's one thing I love, it's undersized power forwards. If there are two things I love, they are undersized power forwards named Udonis.

He was the unsung hero of Game 6 of the NBA Finals; the Heat wouldn't have had a chance without his retarded 15-foot Js that looked they were never going to fall.

Udon also doubles as the only member of the Heat I would not glare at if I passed him on the street. Dwyane can't even spell his name right and now he's Finals MVP? Come on.

G: Mickael Pietrus

On the squad for his defensive wizardry if nothing else. As a huge bonus, if he ever figures out how to play offense, we have a latter-day Kobe on our hands.

That's a lie, but if you know someone who started as only being good at defense and then evolved into a threat on the offensive end, please let me know and I will change it.

G: Marquis Daniels

You may remember good 'Quis as the only Maverick to show up for Game 6. You may also remember him as the subject of Avery Johnson's curious decision to bench the most productive scorer on the floor.

He made White Chocolate and Dwyane Wade look like the bitches they deserve to look like on a nightly basis.

Then, he was traded for Austin Croshere.

There is no good explanation for someone with sick driving and some point guard skills should be shipped off for a do-nothing whiteboy who has his run of glory 8 years ago in college.

G: Bobby Jackson

Maybe I missed something. Did Bobby Jackson kill someone's dog?

For some reason, he went from ridiculously talented backup to shitkicker that no-one would touch. I can detect no reason other than pet slaughter to justify his free fall from grace.

He's a steady hand backing up the point, one who can stroke the occasional 3, pass the ball to the open man, and penetrate the paint when necessary.

A good 12th man unless he kills another cat.

Raw Power

2006-07-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

The culmination of the starting five will include a bench; it would be lame to finish this with only one person, no matter how special.

There is a percieved decline in the American center. The so-called "Heavyweights" are a dying breed--Shaq is their last outpost in the landscape of the NBA. But Shaq also killed the center. More on that later.

Right now, we're going to talk about the center, as well as the bench for this team of legends.

Center: Dwight Howard

Howard's game is about as cultured as Borat during his meeting with the Southern wine-tasting gentlemen. There's power to it, and a certain sincerity, but none of the polish that truly creates a gem.

As it is, he is the ultimate diamond in the rough. In this case though, he is not a shining star in a sea of mundanity. Rather, he must combat his own horselike uncoordination in a quest to meld a more perfect model of what a center should look like.

To take this analogy a little too far, he is like a piece of coal. Only with time and pressure will he evolve into the most valuable and unbreakable gem on the planet.

For a piece of coal though, he's pretty damn good.

Wave of Mutilation

2006-07-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

Small Forwards are incapable of deciding a game of basketball. Since Larry Legend, none of the swingmen have done anything but flail helplessly at the monolith of guards and centers. While SFs are often praised for their versatility, that same versatility also condemns them to the life of an outsider--never intimately wrapped up in the outcome of the game. The ghetto of the swingman is one near impossible to break out of. If one does, one does it in style.

On to the next two of my Starting Five.

SF: Gerald Wallace

A ghetto superstar if there ever was one. G Walls was dumped unceremoniously on the Bobcats by the Sacto Kings after he failed to develop as they thought he might.

There, he blossomed into a dunking and occasionally shotblocking force at the SF spot, finally reaching a more perfect state in 2005-6 season. His offensive game has matured to the point of illness, his defensive game on its way.

His dunks have some of the power of Nique, along with some of his explosiveness to and from the ball. If he ever harnesses his physical power more than he has now, watch out.

PF: Josh Smith

He's techinically an SF, but then what the hell do positions mean anyways?

Smith is raw power embodied--his dunks are the most vicious since Shawn Kemp. He is still figuring out how to play the game though.

One night he might block five shots, dunk the ball six times, and make the opposing coach cry twice, but the next he could slip down into the oblivion that has occupied Small Forwarddom since Legend and Nique hung up their spikes.

He will fit into this squad's tempo perfectly, and give us another crazy person to hammer down dunks on unsuspecting opposition.