The Association

Random Thoughts

by Craig Kwasniewski

Just a few random thoughts/observations this week in the NBA:

-Shaquille O'Neal's fourth-grade teacher from Fort Stewart, Ga., Annette Swann, 76, saw him play for the first time. "She was one of the first people to believe in me," said O'Neal, who arranged tickets for Swann and her daughter Amy Allyn, plus hotel accommodations and gifts from the Heat store.

Here's my question, if she was one of the first people to believe in Shaq then why did it take her 13 seasons to see him play? Did she think this whole basketball thing was a hobby? Was she waiting for discount tickets to the Heat's new promotion: Euthanasia Day?

-Speaking of the Heat, according to the AP, " Antoine Walker busted out of his slump with a season-high 32 points as the Miami Heat overcame Dwyane Wade's absence to beat Toronto 106-97 on Tuesday night"

Help me on this one, how is it "busting out of a slump" if you continually shoot poorly from the field your entire career? (His career field goal percentage is 41.5%) Any Antoine Walker fan (do they exist?) will acknowledge that his best overall season was 2001-02 when the Celtics were 2 games from the finals. Did you know he shot 39.4% from the field in 01-02? I've seen enough of his shots hit the side of the backboard this season to realize that he can no longer "bust out of a slump". A good game from him results from TON of garbage points or a planetary alignment (re. rare).

-There was a great discussion on John Hollinger (genius or fraud) in yesterday's post. He's another reason why The Daily Dime reigns supreme in unintentional comedy. Some of the quotes and news items (such as Shaq's teacher story), originally intended to inform are simply hilarious. Take for example, Marc Stein's quote from the weekend edition from Spurs Coach, Gregg Pockavich:

"I spend no time engaging in psychological bull----. What this game means and how motivated they are and we've got to bring the juice and all that crap ... I'd get tired if I did that before every game."

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, not exactly eager to help us hype up Friday's final Dallas-at-San Antonio showdown of the regular season.

This comes from the same guy who executed one of the biggest coachspeak/phychological ploys back in 2003-04. After winning the title in 02-03, to motivate the team the following season, Pock would not acknowledge the title. He went as far as to ask the Spurs PA announcer to stop calling the Spurs "the defending champions!" In press conferences he reminded those willing to listen that the 03-04 Spurs are not the defending champs, but rather they need to earn a new title. COME ON!!!

-I saw the Lakers beat the Golden State 111 to 100 last night at Staples. There's not really much to gather from the game. Kobe was trying for 50 from the get-go, but landed awkwardly on a drive in the second quarter and may have hurt his knee or ankle. (The injury didn't look too serious) He had 30 at half but pretty much laid low for the rest of the game as he finished with 31 points.

For the fans of Entourage, they were filming the show during the entire game with Jeremy Piven's character (Ari) sitting next to the Laker bench acting a scene with producer Joel Silver. The rest of the cast was sitting courtside across the way doing some scenes. Personally, I think it's one of the most overrated shows on television, but the game was a blowout so what else was I going to do watch Kwame Brown drop 4 or 5 passes?

Random Thoughts

by Craig Kwasniewski

Some random thoughts after All-Star Weekend:

-Extra props to Spud Webb for not flinching on the Nate Robinson dunk. How bad would that have been if Nate collided with Spud on the dunk? People would be saying, "I went to a dunk contest and midget wrestling broke out!"

-Robinson's dunk over Spud Webb was sweet!!! Not only did he pay tribute to the past (which all the old school guys love), but at 5'7" he jumped over Spud and dunked the ball... at 5'7"!!!

-Iguodala's dunk was truly unique as nobody else will ever attempt that again. Pulling out the thesaurus, sublime seems to fit description. NBA.com has a great photo sequence of dunk.

-The Magic Johnson Muumuu watch was on for All-Star Saturday. Every year that he partakes in the Shooting Stars competition, his jersey gets bigger and bigger. This year, he did not disappoint us.

-Andrea Bocelli sang at All-Star Saturday Night??? What audience were they shooting for, the 40-50 year old housewife? As the Winter Olympics shows, you can't make money unless you get THAT demographic. How long before we see NBA Cares adds talking about menopause? (Imagine LeBron on telling a room full of women the benefits of Premarin)

-Funniest moment of the All-Star Game broadcast goes to Steve Kerr and Doug Collins imitating Marv Albert's famous, "Jordan... a spectacular move!" call.

-The West lost the All-Star game simply because they spent the entire second half trying to get T-Mac the MVP award. So with the west down 2 with the ball, EVERYBODY knew that T-Mac was going to take the last shot. Why not give the ball to Kobe for the winner? If Kobe hits the shot, T-Mac still wins the MVP. Instead we get a bad fade-away three that ends in an airball. Like Houston needs to see another one of those.

-As we said, the dunk contest is competitive again. The only problem I had with the dunk contest was the unlimited amount of attempts. That just killed the momentum between dunks. After 10 misses, we were just rooting for ANY kind of dunk. Maybe limit each dunk to five attempts. There has to be some sort of gamesmanship involved.

Random Toughts

by Craig Kwasniewski

Just some random thoughts while we head for Kobe v Shaq IV on Monday night:

-This will be my first chance to see Shaquille O'Blob in a Heat uniform live. He did make a surprise visit to a Laker game a few weeks ago and got a mixed reaction from the fans. About 40% of the fans booed him as he sat courtside. I had a problem with the booing at the time because I felt the fans should respect all the titles he brought to town. I'll boo him on Monday because of all the bullshit that has surrounded him since (getting Van Jeremy fired, the constant complaining about the Laker brass, mailing in the regular season... again)

-How nice to honor Martin Luther King by having nine day games in The Association. I'm sure the players are all too happy to get up before noon after the usual all-nighter of groupies, tonk and toke. As Barkley has said before, how nice to honor a black civil rights leader by making black people work. Can't we solve this by just having Utah play Memphis on MLK day every year?

-Did you know that if you re-arrange the letters of Ron Artest they make Arrest Not?

-BTW - I know this is an NBA blog site, but if Indianapolis would have pulled out the victory over Pittsburgh I was ready to drop 1,500 words on how David Stern was doing consultant work for the game. That reverse call on the Polamalu interception was fixed on the level of the 1985 NBA Lottery. The funny thing was that it took 15 minutes of real time to review the call and just before announcing the reversal, the ref had a sickened "I know I'm cheating, but I have to keep my job" look on his face. I'm not a fan of either team (sadly I'm a Chicago Bear fan), but that call was atrocious!

-Lost in Pat Riley's coup d'état, Shaq's "injury", Shaq's lack of conditioning and ALL of Antoine Walker's bricks is the career year that Jason Williams is having. J-Will is averaging 14.5 points and 4.8 assists while shooting career highs from the field (46.5%), from three (40.5%) and free throws (89.5%). Many predicted he would have been the biggest head case, instead he's been one of the more consistent players.

-I never gave my take of the Kobe v Shaq III game on Christmas. I felt that the Lakers played some of their best basketball of the season in the third quarter. They had Miami on the ropes, but they never finished them off.

-Prediction: With Kobe's sprained wrist, I find it really difficult for the Lakers to hang with Miami. They would need the ultimate team performance and right now the Lakers have long stretches where they seem out of sync only to have Kobe bail them out. Injuries at the swing spots (Laron Profit and Aaron McKie) force the Lakers to depend on resident piece of crap: Devean George. I see Wade having a good game with Miami winning 107-99.

Random Toughts

by Craig Kwasniewski

-The Golden State Warriors' bigs are so soft that Ryan Bowen dropped 13 points and 8 rebounds on them last night. The guy averages 1.6 points a game!!!! Somewhere Greg Kite, Paul Mokeski, Jon Koncak and Uwe Blab are smiling. (or tripping on the stairs)

-If the Lakers somehow get Ron Artest, their advertising slogan for 2005-06 should be "Rape and Pillage!"

-Shocking revelation, the Utah Jazz have a dance team. The next thing you'll tell me is that they serve caffeinated Coke at the Delta Center.

-At the Laker Christmas party, does Phil Jackson get drunk and hit on the boss' daughter? Nevermind...

-Those floating, pull-up three pointers by T-Mac are just plain sick. They look like there's no way they'll go in, then BANG! Again, just plain sick!

-Do you think that the guy on the Pacers that had Ron Artest as a Secret Santa is relieved now that Artest wants to be traded? What would you get Ron anyway? A trial sized box of Xanex? Musical taste? And you know the other guy is getting screwed in the deal because Artest would just wrap up a copy of his CD.

-If Jeff Van Jeremy and Pat Riley exchange gifts this Christmas, Van Jeremy should send him a knife with a note saying, "I believe this is yours."

-Phil Jackson has said before that the first long road trip for a team is a good bonding experience. How else can you explain the Lakers' 5-1 road trip, including a quality win at Dallas on Monday. Over the past 8 games, the triangle offense is looking solid as everyone (except Devean George) is contributing.

-Ryan Bowen has a website?!?!? Can we please stop giving websites to any joe blow off the street? Nevermind...

Random Toughts

by Craig Kwasniewski

-Random NBA celebrity sighting while in New York...Manute Bol (see Picture). Which brings the obvious question? What the hell is he doing at Trump Tower? Is he the new "surprise" in The Apprentice? You know like, win Manute's dinar (Sudanese dollar). Whatever, as long as he says, "you're fired" I'm on board.

-Steve Nash is so good that he's making Kurt Thomas look quick.

-Factoid of the night: The Utah Jazz's average age is 25.5. That's like 3 years younger than the BYU basketball team.

-Reason number 1,207 for not shopping at a grocery store after midnight: Old checkout guy goading Vietnam Vet into a conversation about his experience at Hamburger Hill.
"I heard a lot of people died there", as the guy is scanning cottage cheese.
"Yep", quietly, in a remorseful way.
"Like aaaaa lot of people."
"Yes." Sweat is starting to come out of his ears. People waiting in line are nervous.
"You must of lost a lot of friends."
"YES!" With a firmness that says, where's my gun. Everyone in the store are grabbing their cell phones and quickly moving for the exits.
"Gotta be a lot of bad memories."
I can't remember the rest of the conversation as I ran home avoiding the eventual Postal moment.

-I can't wait untill the Suns play Golden State again, last night's game was a throwback to the 1980's. Phoenix just knows how to rotate and fill spaces on the offensive end.

-Golden State threw everyting into the mix last night. They even rolled out Baron Davis's grandmother, Leyla Nicholson, to the game for inspiration. This was here first time she was seeing Barron in a Golden State uniform. (I keep thinking about the Euthanasia Day scene from Death Race 2000)

-Do you think Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki communicate with each other on their matching Sidekicks?

Random Thoughts

by Craig Kwasniewski

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Some random thought on a busy night in The L:

-Did you know that for high school, Dirk Nowitzki attended Röntgen-gymnasium school? Is that like graduating from Rucker Park? I'll give the euros some credit, instead of throwing some high school athlete in some bullshit class like "The Internet 101", they just play hoops all day long.

And yes...I'm just looking for some way to justify posting the drunk Dirk photo.

-So the worst thing in pop culture is the combining of couple names. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes is TomKat. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is Brangelina. I guess the Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson would be KoJack. Hey Kobe, who loves ya baby!

-My new favorite team, Golden State won it's fourth in a row last night. Can they please scrap those awful Warriors jerseys and go back to the retro "The City" duds. How can you gain respectability in such crappy gear.

You gotta love the cable car numbers on the back.

-Shitty Laker not named Kobe Bryant stat of the week: Brian Cook shot a whopping 0 for 7 from the field against San Antonio on Tuesday night. That drops his season average down to 5.9 ppg. or roughly $146,745 per point. And remember, Mitch Kupchak gave this guy a 2 year extension! Once again, thank you Mitch.

-The dose of reality is starting to hit the Clippers, after starting the season 9-2 with the Indianapolis Colts schedule, they have lost 3 of 4 games against playoff contenders. The next 6 games are a true test of their "championship mettle", as the band-wagoners would say (home games in caps): CLEVELAND, MIAMI, NEW YORK, PHOENIX, DETROIT and at San Antonio.

-And finally, Alonzo Mourning had 9 (yes NINE!!!) blocked shots Tuesday night against New York. Hey Knicks, the guy's like 47 years old with one kidney. What ever happened to the five foot jump shot? Is that the "right way to play?"