I Love This Game

I stopped playing basketball five years ago (2004). I didn’t lose the fire for the game. I remain an ultra competitive person and still retain the mind to play the game well. The problem was that I hated playing with random guys who never liked to play defense, but had no problem dribbling on their own for forty seconds without crossing the free throw line. I play to win: go hard on defense, rest on offense by rotating the ball, and communicate with the team. Of course this sort of formula hardly ever works when playing pick up games so eventually I got bored with it. So I started living vicariously in the athletes who played the game I love, but then a pattern became clear to me in college basketball and the NBA:

College Basketball: Here’s what you need to win - Get a penetrating point guard, a few guys who can spot up for shots, some size for the glass, and some prestige so the refs give you the benefit on nearly every call (and so ESPN can talk about how great this team is based on clout built from decades ago that gray haired aficionados still remember). Now that sounds like a ‘duh’ situation except for the fact that in application, but it is incredibly boring to watch because it becomes a basketball flowchart.




NBA: Same formula except that the superstar tends to get more acclaim than the franchise (unless we are talking Lakers, Knicks or Celtics) and some centers actually dunk the ball. Few teams actually run plays consistently in the NBA, but all of them revert to a pick and roll with their two best players as the chosen offense for the last six minutes of a close game.

In Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers even said screw that and just handed LeBron James the ball at the top of the key from the tail end of the third quarter until the end of the game, not one set play. If LeBron James was not LeBron James then the Cavaliers easily lose but he is an amazing talent who willed them to victory with 37 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists (that would be like if one lioness took out five grown wildebeests on her own). The Cleveland Cavaliers are coached by Mike Brown, THE FREAKING NBA 2009 COACH OF THE YEAR, AND THAT’S THE BEST HE CAME UP WITH!!!! Witnessing James be a one man crew may be fun to some, but that was like a basketball felony to me. No superstar should be forced to do it even if he can because, as expected, he looked exhausted the next game.


Please tell me I was not the only sick of these damn things showing up even AFTER the Cavs did not make the Finals.

NBA players, coaches, general managers and the like get upset with fans for be critical and telling them how to do their job. I can understand that to a degree. If I have never had sex I can’t tell another man how it feels to be inside a woman, but I can at least tell him what hole to put it in. To be frank, I see a lot of NBA players, coaches and general managers just putting it in the wrong hole. Mike Brown is a coach example. Kobe Bryant is also an example although he won a championship this year, he remains a player who does not respect his teammates (and if he could, he would dribble it alone for forty seconds in a game winning situation) - I will let Bill Simmons, my favorite sports columinst break this one down (I recommend reading his whole column, it‘s amazing) :

Kobe '09: Change we can believe in?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090616&sportCat=nba

If you're playing the "Shut up, Kobe was better this spring!" card, your only real evidence is two signature Kick-Butt Kobe Finals Games (Games 1 and 5). But if you're selling the "Kobe finally gets it" angle, then why was he gunning for 40 points at the tail end of a Game 1 blowout when he had already taken 30-plus shots? In Game 2, why did he go one-on-four for the winning basket (and miss) and ignore three wide-open teammates? Why did everyone so willingly gloss over the fact that, from the second quarter of Game 3 through overtime of Game 4, he missed 31 of 46 shots and kept shooting, anyway? Or that, near the tail end of Game 5, Kobe was so desperate to drain the clinching dagger that he clanged two 27-footers and allowed Orlando to climb within 12? Or that he didn't have a single clutch moment in the Finals other than his sweet dish to Gasol during their frantic Game 4 comeback?

I swear this man takes all my ideas and publishes them before I can. I don't even say they are my opinions any more, "Bill said this (insert genius sports analysis)."

My Chicago Bulls are another great example of how not to find the hole. Other than the attempted trade for Kobe Bryant (yeah, a tad ironic for me) they have not done much to shake things up. AND NO, I WILL NOT TALK ABOUT SIGNING BEN WALLACE TO A FOUR YEAR, $60 MIL CONTRACT JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE SCARED OF THE PISTONS HAVING AN AGINIG, NO OFFENSE HAVING… OMG I HAD FORGOTTEN THAT… DAMN! AHHHHHHHHH! I‘m seriously holding my face right now. That would be like convincing someone to make a trade in Monopoly based on the argument that the baby blue property (Oriental, Vermont, and Connecticut) on the board was more valuable than that dark blue (Park Place and Boardwalk) because the dark blue only has two spots while the baby blue has three… Then they did make a trade that made Cleveland better and is probably the catalyst to LeBron staying in … See this is why I don’t think about this stuff.


Yep, it's that crucial sometimes. I do not recommend playing Monopoly with people you do not like, it's gonna turn out even worse than this.

Chicago Bulls (1966 - ) Draft History

http://www.basketballreference.com/draft/draftteam.htm?tm=CHI&lg=N

*Side note: To make a point, I was going through the Bull draft history and just remembered that we drafted LaMarcus Aldridge and traded him before he played a game in a Bulls uniform. I refuse to even look up what happened. My subconscious just does not want me to remember for a reason.

*goes to weep in a corner for a few moments and nibble on a cookie*

Sigh, ok. John Paxson has an obsession with the same sort of player - an athletic, high energy big man without an offensive game, who crashes boards but has the “potential” to be a star (basically the flow chart star from the NCAA flowchart). This is not a bad pick and can work out if given the right situation, but this does not work out when you always have three to four players on your team who are supposed to play the “ athletic, high energy big man without an offensive game, who crashes boards but has the “potential” to be a star” role. Now we have a new GM considering giving Ben “Shoot Over Triple Teams” Gordon a contract worth over $10 million a year (hell, let’s just be consistent with all the Bens and give him the “Wallace” contract) when he could not be a starter on 20 teams in the NBA.



Shrug, wakarimasen. John Paxson wa baka ni shimashita.

After typing those last few paragraphs, I’m too upset to even think about basketball for a few days. Maybe I’ll finish my main point later on a different day.

I need to apply to be an NBA GM. HAHA, GM.

Maybe that’s not funny.