And just like that, we’re back. Let Thugger up there keep you company on our misguided tour of the NBA going into the new season.
Read More(Approximately) 60 Thoughts on 30 NBA Teams, 2021-’22 Edition
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Tag Archives: Milwaukee Bucks
Them Opry Stars, Or Me?
Two teams, born out of necessity in the same year and in service to the same league starting to feel the pressure of a burgeoning challenger not beholden to its own, increasingly antiquated norms, met for the first time in the NBA Finals in this, of all years. While one experienced immediate success, winning a coin toss over the other which led to literally Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and, subsequently, a championship in 1971, the other endured the weird fluctuations that come with acting like a small market team while not being a small market team.
For as influential a year as 1968 was supposed to have been in the minds of those who lived it, two products of that vintage specifically, each of whom have long disappointed their faithful, turned in playoff runs and an NBA Finals for the ages. While the Phoenix Suns’ third run to the championship round ended in something approaching triumphant uncertainty, the Milwaukee Bucks wheezed hot fumes in the face of adversity. Fifty years after their first, the Bucks are the NBA champions.
Read MoreYour Bending Sickle’s Compass Come
Source: Chris Graythen/Getty Images North America
They said it was coming, but then – they tend to say a lot of things that don’t end up coming to fruition, don’t they? The Industrial Revolution presented us with a future that increased efficiency in equal measures, counterintuitively, with the waste they created; electricity allowed us to light, to heat, to dance into the night and passively allow dawn to become more a frame of reference than a time; Future is called Future, but he lives in the present, so what, or when, is he, exactly?
Health, though, is the great equalizer, one never to be fooled by fancy gadgetry or horse economics, ailments simultaneously unpredictable and inevitable. Anthony Davis has missed a combined 82 games out of 492 since he entered the league with the now-New Orleans Pelicans. That equates to a full regular season of NBA basketball. Comparatively, the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo has missed 17 games of a possible 414 after entering the league a full season after Davis.
These two are the (extremely early, but completely veritable) frontrunners for MVP this year. What separates them on the surface are their respectively unique and valuable skillsets, but what may very well make the difference between them in this particular race is that ever elusive, despicably cunning bill of health, springing up for you to care at only the most improper times.
Freaks and Greeks
Hercules Strangles the Nemean Lion, Peter Paul Rubens
Half-mortal, half-divine, the Greek divine hero Heracles, better known by the Roman translation, Hercules, is best remembered for his remarkable strength and willingness to carry out seemingly impossible tasks. At the behest of King Eurystheus, the hero is said to have completed the feats which became known as his Labours. Over the course of twelve years, Hercules slayed a lion, stole some apples and captured a vicious dog, among other extraordinary tasks.
Seemingly mortal, nevertheless divine, the Greek guard Giannis Antetokounmpo is becoming known for his remarkable length and ability to carry out heretofore impossible tasks for the Milwaukee Bucks. At the behest of his coach, Jason Kidd, Giannis is undertaking laborious missions of his own, already pushing the boundaries of what a point guard is and can be in today’s NBA.
33-Pointer: What Not To Look For This NBA Season
Courtesy of vinclusive.com
After months of agonizing anticipation, during which we filled time with other allegedly important sporting events and Mad Men binges on Netflix, the 2014-’15 NBA regular season begins tonight. A three-game slate eases us back into basketball this evening, and there are many important questions surrounding each team, the answers to which will dictate the course of the season. How will the new-look Cavaliers fit together? For how much longer will Rajon Rondo remain a Boston Celtic? When will Kevin Durant return from injury, and what will he look like? [Insert literally anything] Derrick Rose? What about Kawhi Leonard’s contract situation and “the Spurs way”? Is the triangle a total crock of grade-A bull fertilizer, spread below the floor of Madison Square Garden ahead of the stadium’s demolition and the subsequent establishment of an actual garden in its place?
All that, we will know in due time. What we won’t know is what we don’t think about. Let’s take a moment to consider the impossible, that which could never conceivably happen in today’s National Basketball Association. Then let’s never think about any of these things again.
NBA 2013-’14 Season Preview: Central Division
We continue our exploration of the wild, the innocent and the Broad Street kerfuffle in the NBA. This installment focuses on #thereturn, Roy Hibbert’s quasi-homophobia and the transcendence of Kyrie Irving.
Tuesdays With Horry 