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Tag Archives: Basketball

Riding With The Kings

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September 10, 2015
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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It’s almost the middle of September, which means it’s almost October, which means it’s almost time for basketball season. With the NFL stumbling over itself at every turn – which, come to think of it, is how most of its current players will spend their autumn years, in their mid-40s – and baseball casually winding toward the postseason (we see you, Mets), basketball still stakes a claim in some part of the sports conversation, even if you aren’t watching EuroBasket games in the middle of your afternoon (On Wednesday, Italy mounted a comeback to force overtime and beat Germany, 89-82). Tuesday’s announcement that NBA division winners are no longer guaranteed playoff spots kick-started much of the hibernating excitement which will roll us into the upcoming season.

With basketball season breathing down our necks, it’s time to start considering how some of the pieces of Adam Silver’s puzzle will fit, how they will interact with one another and how they can realize their potential. One of the most interesting teams for this basketball season has long been a laughingstock, even with a generational talent who may very well be the best pure center in the NBA. Now, that team has two potential game-changing centers, as well as a hodgepodge of players who either grew out of previous roles or never quite fit into them in the first place. The Sacramento Kings aren’t good, yet, but they could be, and they’re seemingly better; they aren’t stable, yet, but they were for a brief time last year; and they aren’t a favorite, which may end up making them one of the most dangerous teams in the league.

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Drenched to the Bone: The 2015 NBA Draft

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June 26, 2015
Basketball, NBA
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I know this gentleman’s sister. She also trusts the process.

Wikipedia pinpoints the start date of Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour as June 7th, 1988. Since then, with a brief pause due to health concerns in 1997, Dylan has toured internationally almost non-stop, intermittently breaking to release albums. He alienates and enchants his fans, which has always been part of the Dylan mystique, but no matter what, he keeps our attention. As the self-proclaimed poet laureate of rock and roll, he’s earned that much.

I couldn’t tell you exactly when it became imperative to keep track of every movement in professional basketball, but my best guess is that somewhere in the last decade or so, ESPN, FreeDarko, statistical analysis and all which those entities begat made the NBA tab of the Bottomline like reading a daily newspaper. In the year-round NBA, we hardly have a moment to breathe.

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Feed Your Head

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June 17, 2015
Basketball, NBA
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Ken Blaze/USA TODAY Sports

The 2014-’15 NBA season is now over, having come in like a lion and gone out like the exploding sun’s inevitable consumption of the Earth. The best team from the regular season capped off its run with a championship, and the best player in the world sulked away with a 2-3 record in the NBA Finals after posting one of the greatest individual series ever. LeBron James is the seminal figure in the movement which fell him in these Finals, and Golden State’s enthusiastic adoption of flexibility proved too much for Cleveland’s limited, defense-heavy rotation.

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A.I., Robot

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June 12, 2015
Basketball, NBA
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Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports

Notice the stark contrast between reactions to Games 3 and 4 of the NBA Finals. On Wednesday and Thursday, we were talking about the legacy of LeBron James, the misfiring Warriors lineup and what Matthew Dellavedova meant to both. The Delly IV Game became fodder for pundits and fans alike, and a formerly innocuous backup became instantly polarizing due to what he was doing to the league’s beloved MVP and the offense which revolves around him.

Now, we’re discussing the all-around resurgence of Golden State, LeBron’s fatigue and the crucial lie Steve Kerr told concerning the best LeBron-stopper the Warriors have. Today, we pay respect to Andre Iguodala.

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And When The Sky Was Opened

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June 10, 2015
Basketball, NBA
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Shout out to the fan in the crowd wearing the USA jersey, because he knows who the real winner of this series is. (AFP Photo/Jason Miller)

This is a safe space. Here, you can feel free to admit that you had no idea how we got here, to a 2-1 Cavaliers lead through three games of the NBA Finals. You probably thought the Cavs couldn’t do it when Kevin Love became Kelly Olynyk’s personal Stretch Armstrong action figure. And you definitely thought the Cavs couldn’t do it when Kyrie Irving went down with a fractured kneecap in Game 1. Sure, they had LeBron, but at 30 and in his fifth straight Finals, how much damage could he possibly inflict on his own? People that now say they knew the Cavs would be up 2-1 under these circumstances are liars. It’s alright, you can admit you were wrong. We all were.

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Days of Future Passed

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June 4, 2015
America, Basketball, NBA
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Cleveland sports fans have suffered for 51 years. It is well-documented, even on this site, and the many near-misses over the years have done nothing to alleviate the anguish. Cubs fans feel sorry for Cleveland faithful, because at least they have the Bears, Blackhawks and Bulls in the Windy City. Cleveland’s best claim to a winner lay two and a half hours southwest in Columbus, where THE Ohio State University has returned to national prominence courtesy of its football team.

Desperation in the Bay Area does not nearly reach Cleveland’s feverish pitch, thanks in part to the San Francisco 49ers, the defending World Series Champion Giants and a perennially competitive A’s team. The Golden State Warriors, however, have not won a title since Rick Barry was tossing underhanded free throws while averaging thirty points a game in 1975.

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True Grit

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May 19, 2015
Basketball, NBA
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Houston Rockets guard Pablo Prigioni steals the ball from Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin in Game 7 of the NBA basketball Western Conference semifinals on May 17, 2015.

AP Photo/David J. Phillip

The image of the gunslinger is one of classic American lore. A grizzled veteran of saloon shootouts and vigilante justice, he walks with a distinct swagger and carries himself with pride, knowing he is merely a poker game gone awry from coming face to face with his demise.

It seems that gunslingers will always dictate the history of the West. The barroom brawl that just concluded in Houston has left one team dazed and the other unfazed.

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Defender of the Universe

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May 5, 2015
Basketball, NBA
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Warner Bros.

Yesterday, the NBA officially announced Wardell Stephen Curry II as the MVP, and rightfully so. With the possible exception of Russell Westbrook during the second half of the season, nobody was more consistently electrifying than Curry, whose barrages of three-pointers and Vine-worthy displays of ankle-breaking handles impelled the Warriors to a league-best 67 wins. Curry’s play leaves you gasping for air, wondering if the sun rises simply to shine on the scrawny kid from Charlotte and his band of audacious musketeers.

Instead, however, I want to talk about another product of North Carolina, an injured point guard who never so much inspires gasps as he does head-nodding. He is the smartest on-court player in the league, perhaps its best backcourt defender, as polarizing as he is mesmerizing. On one leg, he may have just ended the greatest sports dynasty of the last two decades (“may have,” only because nothing is certain in San Antonio’s Fountain of Youth, and that sentence could’ve been written anytime from 2006-2013, with any number of slayers replacing Paul). The time has come to lavish praise, begrudgingly if you must, on Chris Paul, one of the greatest point guards in history.

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Designed to Win

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April 10, 2015
Basketball, NBA
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Abstract Light Dots

“And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.” – Ayrton Senna

Even more so than usual, I’ve been thinking about Russell Westbrook. Let me start over: I’ve been thinking about Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans’ uphill charge into the Western Conference playoffs. Standing in their way, of course, for most of the second half of the season has been the Oklahoma City Thunder, who have spent the majority of their injury-riddled season as presumed playoff participants. As Westbrook continues his quest to personally decimate everything in his path, Davis has led the Pelicans to the eighth and final spot with a week to go. New Orleans holds the tiebreaker but plays a much tougher schedule. The Thunder have Westbrook; does any team need more than that?

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Wing Man

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March 19, 2015
America, Basketball, College Basketball
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Update 1 – 12:28pm

https://instagram.com/p/0amu5qKDyM/?taken-by=tylau27

I just arrived at the Downingtown chapter of Buffalo Wild Wings, one of my favorite establishments in these United States. It was here that I enjoyed almost every NFL Sunday this season. It was here that I bought a round of Jameson shots for strangers when the Seahawks miraculously tied the Packers in the NFC Championship to force overtime, and then picked up those strangers in pure elation after RUSSELL HUSTLE BUSTLE WILSON won the game, prompting another round of Jameson shots.

I have often said that this is my happiest place on Earth. Give me $50 and a full slate of sports at BWW, and I might as well be on vacation in Hawaii for a week. This is the shit that I live for.

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