NBA Christmas Day Preview

So guyz.

I'm starting to get real sick of the NFL.  Not so much of Roger Goodell and all the domestic abusers of wives, children, and amphetamines (while those are deplorable).  I'm mostly getting sick of the fact that the NFL and ESPN are 69-ing super hard all the time.  If you didn't hear Mike and Mike, Colin Cowturd, Skip Bayless, and all the rest of the ESPN blowhards jizz in their pants about JJ Watt, then I guess you haven't consumed any of ESPN's multimedia this year.  They raved about seeing JJ Watt mic'd up:  "When you see him out there visiting those kids on the playground, you see just how much of a genuine, classy, high character guy he is.  But, man... when he gets out there on that football field... don't mess with JJ Watt!"  As heartwarming as it is to see the NFL Network go out of their way to show players giving back to the community, let's honest:  JJ Watt is not that good at talking trash.    "HEY REF!  I'M BEATING THESE GUYS LIKE A DRUM!!!"  "YOU GONNA HOLD ME ALL DAY OR JUST PART OF IT?."   Wow, JJ Watt.  Don't hurt their feelings.

Tom Brady.  J.J. Watt.  Andrew Luck.  These guys are boring as fuck. NFL players used to have mad swagger.   Randy Moss.  T.O. Chad Ochocinco.  Those guys were pure gold when mic'd up.  Thanks to Ray Rice, the NFL will only promote the guys they know for sure won't say or do anything stupid.  The Shield gets all nervous when their star players swag out. They just don't put mic's on guys like Marshawn Lynch anymore.  Marshawn, you were just born in the wrong era, my friend.  Don't believe me Just watch this Mic'd up on Chad Ochocinco.  There is nothing this entertaining coming out of the NFL Network right now.  Not even close.

Meanwhile, the games are getting kind of weird.  Not the football part, the extra stuff.  Like the Network TV halftime shows.  They're... total garbage.  I don't think Terry, Howie, Jimmy, Dan, Boomer, Bart, or Coach have ever practiced being on TV.  They fuck their lines up half the time, can't find the camera, their collective statements never make any coherent sense, and then Rob Riggle just barges in and farts all over everything, leaving me confused as the football robot sends me to commercial.  But, it's not just the TV coverage that confuses me.  Yesterday, I watched the 49ers game and realized they're playing "Hot Nigga" by Bobby Schmurda every kickoff.  Don't get me wrong, I love to do the Schmoney Dance, but I'm in a small minority of the 25-50 year old Caucasian male crowd who does.   Let me get this straight: someone in the management of Levi's Stadium, aka Google Happy Hour, decided that the best way to pump up a bunch of software engineers for a kickoff is to play "Hot Nigga"?  Just seems weird to me.

Throw in ESPN falling all over themselves to either cream all over or shit all over Johnny Football, and I'm just sofaking ready for the NBA to take over the airwaves.      

So, without further ado, my preview of the NBA Christmas games:

The LA Kobes vs. Chicago Bulls:  Honestly, if Derek Rose doesn't have the balls to bend his fucking knees while playing basketball, then the most entertaining thing about this game will be Kobe shitting on his garbage teammates.  Sadly, D Rose has played like it's Team USA training camp all year, so we haven't really seen the true potential of the Bulls.  On a positive note, Kobe has already told Jeremy Lin to "get the fuck out of the way" for a game winner on one occasion, and Lin complained that he never gets any chance to take a game winning shot on another occasion, so there's a good chance that Kobe either makes Linsanity cry, or punches him the face. I'm pretty excited about this one.  R.I.P. to "Kobe getting his teammates involved" Advantage:  Bulls

The Dubs vs. the Clipshow:  Lots of people had the Clips picked to make the finals this year.  Idiots.  Chris Paul has slowly been losing his hops, his quickness, and now he's losing his hair.  Old man Chris is not enough to get the Clips past the first round of the playoffs, and Steve Ballmer will have to ease off the snortskis this summer and make some trades if he wants to avoid being the worst new NBA owner in California.  The Dubs on the other hand are rolling in the deep with their 2 handsome sharpshooting white boys and their handsome sharpshooting white boy coach.   Advantage:  Dubs

The 'Zards vs. The Knicks:  Carmelo Anthony, you are a lazy waste of talent and a crybaby loser.  At no point during your rambling, incoherent, summer free agency did I ever think that you were actually going to land on a team that would be better off with you.  I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.  John Wall is gonna ball the fuck out.  Advantage: 'Zards 

The Heat vs The Cavs:  I watched a Heat game the other day and.. the Heat are still really easy to hate.  Their arena is still empty, their in-game announcer is still obnoxious, their fans still love Birdman, and Bosh is still a female velociraptor,  I think I actually hate the Cavs less... for now.  As far as the game goes, Lebron always goes beast mode on Christmas, but Wade has been training for this game all summer.  I predict a 40 point night for Wade while Kyrie still won't pass the ball to Lebron, because Lebron won't go Kobe on his ass.  Advantage: Heat.   

Spurs vs Thunder:  Fucking Popovich will probably bench Duncan and Ginobli, so advantage Thunder.  The west is so stacked. The Rondo trade didn't even tip the scales, it just pushed the Mavs into the top 5.  Here's to bounce passes and broken elbow playoff comebacks.  Welcome back to good basketball, Rajon.

Sacramento lost the Billionaire NBA Owner Lottery

There are a lot of disappointed Kings fans this week, thanks to Mike Malone being fired as the head coach.  There are a lot of things that just stink about this move, starting with the fact that their recent losing streak coincided with Boogie Cousins missing like 11 games due to Ebola.  Kings fans should be mad, yes.  Firing your coach 24 games into the season never works out well; just ask the Lakers and Mike Brown.  However, let’s hone in on the truth, here.  There is one reason and one reason only for Kings fans to be mad about the firing of Mike Malone:  Good coaches don’t sign up to coach teams owned by egomaniacs who don’t know WTF they want and are quick to fire coaches.  We’ve seen this over and over again with the Oakland Raiders.  When was the last time the Raiders hired a coach who is capable of coaching a good NFL team?  That’s because coaching the Raiders is like being the White House press secretary:  you’ll eventually get fired for something your boss did.

With that said, Kings fans should not fret over losing Mike Malone.  His firing is not hurting the team right now.  The Kings were, in fact, NOT on the right track.  Their last 2 first round picks are still lost, Jason Terry basically refused to suit up unless he’s traded (which is saying a lot coming from a guy who hasn’t been relevant since 2010) and the team has a habit of taking a 1^st half lead and crashing hard in the 2^nd half.  The 5-1 start was a total fluke.  The only reason the Kings are noticeably better this year than last year is because Boogie learned this summer that you can’t be a bitch-ass, poopy diaper havin’-ass, lower lip quivering, 7 foot tall baby throwing a constant tantrum, and expect anybody to take you seriously, especially the referees. 

Kings fans should be mad, but they should be mad about something more serious than the head coach.  The Malone firing shed a spotlight on the ownership.  Take a good, hard look at this Ranadive guy:   Billionaire owner, philanthropist, tech-business guru, former youth girls basketball coach, and inventor of half a dozen stupid “outside the box” ideas on how to run an NBA franchise.  Everything I’ve read about the guy tells me he’s a fucking joke.   Here are some of his innovative strategies on how to make the Sacramento Kings the NBA team of the future:

1.  “Positionless basketball”.  Fucking genius, right?.  Could you imagine a team with, like, 7-footers playing guard on offense? (ummm, you mean like OKC, Dallas, Milwaukee?), or guards playing down low in the post? (umm you mean like Kobe Byrant has been doing for years?).  It’s like this guy just realized that NBA players are incredibly talented at playing basketball, and he thinks he’s the first one to figure it out.

2. Use their cap space on B-list players like Rudy Gaye with bad contracts.  Why? Because the salary cap will go up eventually, B-list players are better than C-list players, and A-list players aren’t really interested in signing with the Kings… yet!  Holy smokes, that’s genius!  Now if only they could swing a trade for Josh Smith, they’ll be 4 players away from a good starting 5.  I’m not sure where GM Pete D’Allisandro was when the Brooklyn Nets tried this with Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and Brook Lopez, resulting in the only NBA franchise reporting a net operating loss in 2013 and a currently terrible roster who they would love to trade but can’t because NBA GM’s learned that you can’t sign Lebron without a shitload of cap space.

 3. Put Google Glasses on a player and record the game from their perspective.  Sounds cool, I guess?  Except, it’s pretty hard to see what’s happening when the ball is somewhere below their line of sight when they dribble, somewhere above their line of sight when they shoot, and when they defend they’re watching their man, not the ball.  Flush that one down the toilet.

4.  Bitcoin!  Be the first NBA team to accept bitcoin!  OK.  Pretty sure this guy’s first assumption about Sacramento is that it’s somewhere in the Silicon Valley and that everyone in Sacramento is a software engineer.  Nobody in Sacramento uses bitcoin, and 80% of Sacramento is underemployed hipsters.

5. The much publicized “Play defense 4 on 5, with a full time cherry picker”.  Wow, that’s a stroke of genius there.  This is the kind of idea Cartman would come up with.  Every fat 4^th grader has tried this, only to realize that after maybe one basket, the other team figures out how to counter it, and your teammates get tired of chasing up and down the court while you stand there.  The game eventually ends early because nobody is having fun. 

Here’s the really funny thing about this idea:  I first read about Ranadive floating this idea out there in the off season via Zach Lowe on Grantland.  After the Mike Malone firing, Bleacher Report leaked another article about how they’re gonna make a push for it with the new head coach in tow.  Nobody really ridiculed the guy for it the first time around, and everyone is now using his persistence for the idea as evidence that the guy is a wacky, overbearing micro manager.  Now there are articles popping up about the guy all on Forbes about how he takes pride in turning around his 12-year old daughter’s basketball team, having never touched a basketball in his life, by running a full court press.  Ummm?  Full court press kills against girls who can’t really dribble or pass.   Really, all this is telling me is that he knows very little about basketball and is super lost about how it works.

I know he’s a smart guy, but I feel like this needs to be spelled out for him.  Teenage girls’ basketball can barely be considered the same sport as NBA basketball.  There’s a big difference between coaching strategy for girls who barely have the arm strength to get the basketball over the rim, and men who can cover the entire length of the court in 5 dribbles.  Now, it’s hard enough to guard NBA players playing 5 on 5.  You can certainly try playing 4 on 5 defense, but if you leave a big man as your cherry picker, you’re gonna have a really hard time getting a defensive rebound.  If you leave a guard player as your cherry picker, the other team just has to pass around the 3 point line a few times and they’ll get a guaranteed open shot, of which they’ll probably make 70%.  If you go with this strategy for a entire game, there’s a chance you might give up 200 points.   You, on the other hand, will not score 200 points, because all the other team has to do to neutralize your cherry picker is guard the outlet pass and send their fastest player to leak out early on D after a shot goes up to intercept the outlet pass.

The NBA ownership terrain in California has shifted significantly in the past few years, with new ownership for the Warriors, Kings, Clippers, and to a certain extent, the LA Kobe’s.  So far, the verdict is out on former Microsoft CEO and current Clipsow owner Steve Ballmer, who seems content to rip a few rails of white china before going to a game and screaming his eyeballs out when Blake Griffin dunks on fools.  The Warriors ownership took some bumps, but they’re looking like geniuses now after dumping Mark Jackson for Steve Kerr and getting building plans approved in San Francisco so they can occupy the gaping sports market left by the 49ers.  The Buss Family?   Welll…… Jim Buss is pretty dumb, but the Lakers are the Lakers and Jeanie will eventually figure out a way to make Jim let Mitch Kupchak do his job.   They’ll and figure out life after Kobe.  Vivek Ranadive?  Something tells me he never watched basketball until the Lebron hype machine made its way to India, which would be fine if he wasn’t an egomaniacal billionaire who wants his stamp on everything, as NBA owners tend to be.  Sacramento hit the lottery with an ownership group who wants to build a new stadium, but lost it in the sense that this guy doesn’t seem like he’ll be very good at owning a basketball franchise.

The Sacramento Queens still do not employ any good NBA players

Guyz, pretty sick of hearing about Adrian Peterson having a hard time not knowing if he's still in trouble or not, or what his punishment is going to be.  The NFL is being kind of slow about this.  To me, the punishment for him is straightforward:  make him pull his pants down, bend over, and take swats from a wire hanger in the ass, legs, and nutsack.  And if he doesn't feel sorry enough, do it again.  Eye for an eye, ya know?  He's a grown man, he'll understand.

Anyway, now that we've solved that issue, I think we need to talk about the Sacramento Queens of NBA basketball.  When I did my semi-thorough, highly accurate but not very well thought out pre-season ranking of the 2014 NBA season, the Kings were in my bottom echelon of “Teams that literally have no good players”.  Then, the Kings got off to a 5-1 start, beating some decent teams including the Blake “Bitch Slap” Griffin and the LA Clippers. They were making some serious noise, and I was starting to look foolish. Good thing my man Kendrick Perkins was there to remind everyone of who the Kings are.  Honestly, tho Perk, you're one to talk.  Perk is slow as molasses. I can literally say the word “molasses” during his jumpshot, which is without a doubt the worst jumpshot in the NBA today.  He is maybe one of 10 players in the NBA who would not get any minutes if he played for the Kings.

Anyway, I was curious, so I watched 3 quarters of the Kings playing the Mavericks on November 11th, where the Kings went up by 20 in the first quarter, took a 10 point lead into the half, then swiftly gave up that lead with 10 minutes left in the 3rd, and lost the game by more than 10.  The very next game they did the exact same thing to the Memphis Grizzlies, except they lead the game with 0.3 seconds left.  That's when they uncorked quite simply the worst defended inbounds play I've ever seen.  I don't need to see anything more, I was right, the Kings still do not employ any good NBA players.

To be fair, it takes some good team chemistry to run up a 20 point lead on the road in the NBA. Every team has at least 1 guy who can break up the momentum of 10-0 run. It takes a concerted effort to go up 20-4. That being said, it’s not like the Mavs or the Grizzlies rode a monster performance from Dirk or Z-Bo in those games. The Kings just sucked after the first 12 minutes.  They did the exact thing last night against the Pelicans:  12 point lead first quarter, lost the game by the time the 4th quarter started.

So, if you're a Kings fan, how should you feel about the Rudy Gay extension (3 years, $40M).

Against the Mavericks Nov 11th, the Kings went on a stretch in the 3rd quarter where they literally did not get the ball within 20 feet of the hoop for like 5 or 6 possessions.

7 turnovers by Rudy Gay in that game.

Against the Grizzlies 2 days later, I guess you can say they fought pretty hard against a pretty good team, but they literally made the only mistake you can make to allow another team to score on an inbounds play with 0.3 seconds left.  Who made the mistake on the defensive switch?

Rudy Gay.

Basically the very next thing that happened is the Kings extended his contract.  Ladies and gentlemen, your 2014 Sacramento Kings.  Well, at least they have Boogie, right?  Oh wait, Boogie doesn't even play 30 minutes per game because he keeps fouling out.  The Sacramento Queens still do not employ any good NBA players.

2014 NBA Power Rankings

The NBA season is finally here, and I can’t wait to have something to distract me from a slow, agonizing defeat every week in the stupid world of fantasy football.  I hate Rotoworld.  A world where every Tuesday, it is predicted that Andre Johnson will score 90 yards and a TD, and every Sunday Andre Johnson goes for 50 yards and no TD’s, for like 2 years straight.  So, I’m getting my mind right for an exciting NBA season and thinking about which teams may or may not have a shot at beating the Ohio Cavaliers of Cleveland Lebrons.  While ESPN is sifting through the peanuts in Lebron’s turds, trying to rank each individual NBA player, I’m gonna take a few minutes to rank the teams this year in order of worst to best.   Teams are lumped into groups and ranked on criteria of basically nothing other than my opinion.  So here it goes:

Teams that have literally no good players:  The 76ers, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons, and The Sacramento Queens.  Sorry, Boogie.  I know you feel great about making Team USA this summer, but even Rudy Gay made the cut.  Quit fouling out, crying, “gettin’ T’d up for no reason”, jacking up midrange jumpers, trotting back on D, and doing basically everything you do that isn’t dominating the paint.

Teams who never draft black guys:  The Utah Jazz.  Someday, the Jazz will draft a black guy, but he’d be more of a cornball brother than Russel Wilson.  For now, they’re banking on Gordon Hawyard and a 17 year old Australian kid to buck 60 years of trending demographic in the NBA.  Looking back on it, they did draft Karl Malone in 1985.  Then again, Karl Malone is an avid fisherman and hunter, owns an Arby’s and a Monster Truck, and made campaign donations to re-elect George W Bush. 

Teams that are covered in the stench of contract issues:  The Pacers.  They sucked before Paul George (shuddering) broke his leg in half.  Now they’re just a sad sack of wishing they could trade Roy Hibbert.

Teams with decent talent, but they love to tank:   Timberwolves, Bucks, Hawks.  Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins might prove me wrong here, but I doubt it.  Wiggins is McLovin skinny.  Dude needs to hit the weight room.  Jabari is like Paul Pierce 2.0, but Milwaukee has terrible Karma after hiring Jason Kidd. Get ready for some bush-league crap to go down all year long like fake timeouts and “locker room issues”. 

Teams with a flawed star player surrounded by crap:  The Lakers, The Celtics, the Knicks and the Nets.  These team should be tanking, but won’t because they’ve got one guy on their roster who is too good to drown.   I do want to give special shots out to the Lakers for assembling the worst team in the NBA that doesn’t realize how bad it is.  Every Lakers game this year should have a side bet of which will happen more:  Uncontested layups, or the Lakers celebrating routine plays.   The sad part about this group is the Lakers aren’t even in the worst situation of any team here:  THE NETS LOST MONEY LAST YEAR!!!  You have to either be stupid, or a billionaire Russian oil tycoon living life like Jordan Belfort, to lose money on an NBA franchise in Brooklyn.    

 Teams that, I might cop ‘ya jersey, but that about it:  The Blazers (Lillard), Hornets (Stevenson), Nuggets (Faried), Bobcats (Jordan), Suns (Bledsoe), Pelicans (Davis),  Raptors (Lowry), and Wizards (Wall).  Dope players, dope jerseys, deserved hype, but they won’t get past the 1^st round if they make the playoffs at all.  Also, I know the Bobcats don’t exist anymore, but figured that’s a good reason to buy a throwback.  Also, Drake is ruining my image of me owning a Raptors jersey. 

Teams that employ Dwight Howard, and are therefore impossible to like:  The Rockets.  Soon to also be known as the team that employs James Harden, and therefore gives up a lot of free layups.

Teams who won’t contend unless their best player loses 15 pounds:  Memphis, The Heat, and the Clippers.  Yea, I said it.  Chris Paul needs to slim down.  His crafty D and buttery jumper aren’t going to keep him on the top of the PG totem pole for long.  Not with lighting fast players like Kyrie and Westbrook coming down the barrel.   D Wade’s extra poundage really showed through in last year’s playoffs, and is the #1 reason Lebron is in Cleveland.  The best Memphis Grizzly player is whichever of the Gasol/Randolph duo is not winded down the stretch. 

Crazy good Western Conference teams who don’t have an MVP type player:  The Mavs, The Warriors.  Dirk just ain’t MVP Dirk anymore.  The Warriors, if they aren’t already, should be ridiculed for their decision not to trade Klay Thompson for Kevin Love.  Nobody has ever won an NBA championship with 2 undersized big men who can’t stay healthy.  Curry can go into heat-check mode at any time, but his ankles are broken just thinking about guarding Kyrie, Tony Parker, CP3, D. Rose, et al.

Teams that can make the Eastern Conference Playoffs worth watching:  Forget beating the Cavs, I just want to see Derek Rose show up healthy to the playoffs.  At the very least it provides a better Easter conference finals matchup than any godawful showdown between the Heat and the Pacers the past 2 years.  Did I mention the Pacers suck?

The winner plays the Cavs in the finals:  The Thunder or The Spurs.  OKC has a small window here:  They’re like the Magic back in the 90’s with Shaq.  If they don’t win it all, Durant is gone, gone, gone, and he’s winning 2-3 titles with a big market franchise before he retires.  My money says he finds a home in Boston, and Westbrook goes to the Lake Show.  The Spurs are probably in their last run of the “Greg Popovich made the Spurs likeable” era.  My heart years for the champs to repeat, but this time around I don’t think they’re got enough gusto for:

The new and improved Superteam assembled by Lebron:  FHHHAAARRRTTTT SOUUNNDDSSSSSS