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.