NBA Team of the Week: Are Hornets Better than Bobcats?

 

The Charlotte Bobcats look playoff bound, but, as they return to the Hornets moniker next season, is their future that bright?

Dog Days

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a play-by-play (or “Running Diary” as it has been made famous by Bill Simmons) of a sports game. However, I felt like I haven’t truly weighed in on this year’s NCAA Tournament and that I needed to do so. Plus, I like using these posts as a way to expand the appreciation of a sporting event out to some of the main constituents of my audience such as girls and musicians who don’t really follow sports or only follow sports out of nostalgia for a team from their childhood that they actually didn’t know that much about.  See, I need to make these people (who read my blog) appreciate sports in the way that I do, if only for a brief second. And if I have to make fun of myself, digress on Scream 4, or throw a little music discussion in there, well I’m going to do it.

So, I take you back to last night, where I sat on the couch in my apartment and watched the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship between the Butler Bulldogs and the University of Connecticut Huskies.

Pre-Game

-We’re live in Houston for the NCAA Tournament Championship. It's a battle of the dogs: The Huskies and the Bulldogs. In an actual battle of my preference for a dog, a husky would win by a huge margin. Have you ever seen a husky? They are way better, furrier, more handsome and cuter than a bulldog. If you say the opposite, I will never trust your judgment in anything.

- Back to the top, what are we doing in Houston? By all accounts this is an awful city. I saw the Championship Game in 2008 and it was in San Antonio, which was a great place to have a huge, collegiate event that involves lots of eating and drinking. From what I’ve heard, Houston sucks and is very spread out. Nothing even approaching the feel of the Riverwalk. This is already a bad start.

- Another bad sign: during the Butler intros, each player is going down to pet the bulldog, but there are no frontal bulldog shots.  The CBS crew better step it up and know where their bread is buttered. (I’m sure there was a dog metaphor there but I didn’t feel like carrying it out.)

- We get a closeup of Butler coach Brad Stevens. If Butler wins, I’ll look forward to seeing Topher Grace play Stevens in “Bulldogs: An Underdog Story,” which would come out in approximately 2015.

- Next there’s a closeup of Jim Calhoun who, when he retires, could play some kind of criminal in the next Boston crime movie. I mean he’s already got a criminal background with all those NCAA violations!

- I’m actually rooting for UConn because I like Kemba Walker and my friend Rich went there. Kemba has a definite Danny Manning in 1988 vibe and you have to like that—plus he’s from the Bronx and that just seems tough to me.

- Clark Kellogg and the always pleasant Steve Kerr break down the game. The “X-Factor” edge goes to Butler. Not sure what that means, but I’m intrigued!

20:00 – Tip-off goes to UConn as Jim Nantz confidently states, “Time to settle the Madness.” Umm…

19:40 – UConn opens up the game with a herky jerky Olander layup. He scored the first basket against Kentucky, so if you believe in omens, this is a good one.

18:54 – Stigall hits a three pointer for Butler. Both teams are looking very tight.

18:22 – Oriakhi with some nice post moves and a bucket. The name Oriakhi will always make me hungry for some kind of Asian-fusion food, though. I think that’s a plus. Maybe its even an “X-Factor.”

17:07 – Kemba is 0-3 already.  He’s had a couple of good looks. Mack’s been driving into him. Mack is smaller but has a bigger upper body. I like his control and strength. I noticed it last year against Duke but even moreso in this tournament. 4-3 UConn.

15:58 – First TV timeout. I’m hoping for a Scream 4 commercial.

- There is no Scream 4 commercial, but let me take a moment here to talk about the Scream franchise. I’ve made a big deal on my Twitter account and also amongst my real-life friends about seeing Scream 4 when it comes out on April 15. Some people are baffled when I talk about it. That may be because I get so excited and start screaming about how no less than 20 people (as a group) should go and see a Scream movie. I say that because there is no better horror movie to watch in a group, spilling popcorn, sharing popcorn, making jokes, making out, than a Scream movie.  I remember seeing the first Scream in 1997 and how it changed my world.  I don’t particularly like horror movies, but there is something about the Scream franchise. It could just be the meta-element of it and the humor that factor brings, but there is just something so right about it even down to the names of the characters: Billy Loomis, Mrs. Loomis, Sidney Prescott, Gail Weathers, Dewey Riley, Tatum Riley. The acting is always just a good mix of earnestness and self-aware cheesiness that fits perfectly. Plus you have the built-in convention of knowing that the opening scene is going to result in a murder but are still entertained for how it will unfold.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to Scream 4 (Why is Gail Weathers wearing a Ghostface mask in one of the commercials? What does it mean?)

- There is a Your Highness commercial however.  Portman looks great, but it looks like she’ll be continuing the streak of Oscar winners immediately releasing their worst movies right after they win the Oscar.

15:17 – Matt Howard nails a three. Howard is the first college basketball player I’ve seen in awhile who actually looks like a college kid. 6-4 Butler. Let that score sink in for a little bit.

13:55 – Butler misses another shot. Both teams are shooting terribly. NBA, where art thou?

13:19 – Howard is fouled by Okwandu. Okwandu and Oriakhi. Ethiopian and Japanese fusion. Does that work? I think I’d eat that.

13:05 – Kemba hits his first shot of the game.  I really like Kemba. He has a great Iversonian charisma without any of the foreboding danger.

12:34 – After a Butler miss, Kemba drives in transition and gets an “and one.” He’s relentless, never stops attacking. It’s been quite a month with Kemba in the spotlight.

- A break in the action and there’s a Big Bang Theory promo. I always forget that CBS actually has TV shows.

12:21 – Nored at the line for Butler and he makes two free-throws. 13-9 UConn.  I love this Butler team because they have players with classic awkward college basketball names like Nored and Hahn. It reminds me of the late 90’s.

11:58 – We’ve reached the second TV timeout. “Coming in the Air Tonight” hard rock cover leads us into the break. Just awful.

11:45 – UConn looking too big for Butler right now.  Florida did too in the Elite 8, but they didn’t have someone like Kemba on the perimeter to balance out the offense.

10:44 – Jeremy Lamb comes back in the game.  I take back what I said about Howard. Lamb is the first player in years that actually looks like a college kid. Bad facial hair and all.

9:17 – This first half is really, really sloppy.  Howard gets a tie-up.  He’s the white Kevin Garnett for this Butler team. What?

8:16 – Mack’s handle and game remind me of Jamaal Crawford’s game from Finding Forrester.

7:13 – Stigall with a huge 3. Butler takes the lead 16-15. Wait, what? 16-15. Is this 1947?

- During the commercial break we get a Honda Accord commercial featuring “The Only Living Boy in New York” by Simon & Garfunkel. I’ve been wanting to weigh in on this song for awhile. It’s obviously one of the top 5 songs by Simon & Garfunkel and possibly one of the Top 75 songs of the 70’s or the 60’s depending on which decade you allocate the song to. It definitely shows off Simon’s best use of the studio and all of the tricks he developed on Bookends. It also gives a good little nod to the Beatles and their technique of recording cacophonous vocals. I know that people hate on this song because Zak Braff used it in Garden State, but my question is, how many of us were talking about this song before that movie? I mean, I’m sure a lot of music critics and historians were, but people of my generation, how big of a Simon & Garfunkel fan were you before you heard that song? I think a lot of us heard that song, realized we really liked it, found out it was on Bridge Over Troubled Water, picked that album up and realized it was amazing. So, don’t completely hate on Zak Braff.  I’ve had about twelve beers already by the way.

6:40 – Kemba with a jumper.  He keeps plugging away even though he isn’t having one of his best games.  I feel like the dam’s going to break for him in the second half. 17-16 UConn.

5:40 – Jim Nantz is really pushing to remind us how much he enjoyed last year’s final and his call of Hayward’s last shot. Meanwhile, Howard misses after a nice post move. I say he finds some kind of niche in the NBA.  Maybe I’m crazy but I see it for some reason.

4:44 – Clark Kellogg calls getting points in the paint, “gobbling up glass” and follows that metaphor all the way through by saying about Butler that points in the paint aren’t “a big part of their menu.” Ummm…

4:10 – Mack hits a three. 19-19.

44.8 – Um, basically nothing happened in the past four minutes.  This is a BAD game.

0.2 – Mack drains a forced, long three that had me say, “Ughhh…WOW!” Butler goes into the half with the lead 22-19.

- During halftime (as I listen to Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Greg Anthony discuss how awful this game) seems like a good time to elaborate on what the past two NCAA tournaments have meant. Butler, which is a school from a mid-major conference (aka not a school with a traditional athletic program) has been in the Championship Game the past two years. Last year’s tournament and this year’s tournament have been perhaps the two most unpredictable tournaments of all time. However, there has been a noticeable drop-off in overall play as well as a lack of excitement or interest in the regular season. This is due to the fact that players come to college for one year, we don’t learn anything about them (so we don’t really follow the teams that closely) and then they leave for the pros. The level of play drops because the teams can’t really become fluid with each other and the players don’t learn the nuances of the game that they would if they stayed two or three years.  Now, players have been leaving college early since the mid-90’s. It’s only become more of an issue recently because of the NBA’s 19 and over rule about entering the NBA. Now kids simply pick a school because they essentially have a year to kill when they could have once gone to the NBA. Players like Kobe, LeBron, Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal and Amar’e Stoudemire really weren’t going to gain anything from playing college basketball (well, maybe Amar’e would have learned defense, but then again Carmelo didn’t learn it in his one year at Syracuse). But perhaps there is logic to the fact that the players who would go from high school to the NBA would never consider college and that only players who wanted to play college ball would continue to play college ball. All I know is that I am a fan of the 19 and over rule because college athletics has always been a bit of a sham. The fact that the kids now have to go for one year isn’t that much of a difference. They are taking up scholarship chances for other players and I see how that is unfair, but I’d like to see the stats on the increase of one and done players. It was happening in the past, but I feel as though modern media coverage has made it an even more focused issue now.  As an NBA fan and a fan of college in general, I would want players to stay for at least two years so they could hone their skills, learn from good coaches and get some experience at an intermediate level before jumping into the NBA. It would increase the quality of play and also help the marketing of players due to the fact that they would be playing on national television during March for at least two years. That can only help NBA scouts evaluate talent a little bit better (I’m not saying that will get markedly better, but it would be of some aid). This is obviously a complicated issue involving corruption of the NCAA, the state of the NBA and also the prestige of higher education. However, there has to be some system that works. Although, more and more it seems like collegiate athletics may have to evolve in some way or another, though I’m not exactly sure what the eventual solution will be, because schools making money off of players who can’t take gifts or work just seems like it will perpetuate the cycle of corruption.

- Now, halftime laundry fold. I’ve already had about thirty beers so its all good.

19:32 – Stigall opens up the second half with a three.

17:39 – Napier takes a terrible shot. He passes to Lamb, which leads Jim Nantz to say, “Napier feeds Lamb!” Lamb nails the shot. 26-25 UConn.

16:57 – UConn on 7-0 run. This reminds me of the VCU-Butler game from Saturday. Butler just seems to hang around and never completely fall out of a game.

15:39 – Nantz asks Kellogg why the shooting has been so bad. He adds an extra “Why?” in. It sounds like he is pleading with Clark after some kind of horrible atrocity, which I guess this game is.

13:39 – Lamb steals an awful pass and dunks. First dunk of the game! Thank God!

12:38 – I’m having trouble even writing comments about this game. Butler literally can’t make a shot. It’s unreal. It’s like a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial.

12:29 – First bulldog closeup!

11:08 – Napier feeds the Lamb. 37-28. UConn pulling away a bit here.

10:45 – Smith spins to the basket and…misses. No! That was an easy shot. This is literally getting insane.

10:15 – Walker with an unbelievable finger roll. We needed Marv for that (No offense MJ).

8:45 -  Break in the action and a “Poor Shooting” graphic is shown on the screen.  I feel bad even joking about that fact.

8:20 – Butler is 8/49 shooting for the game. Let that stat just soak in.

7:30 – Oriakhi hits a jumper. 41-28 UConn.

6:11 – Smith with a layup! A layup! The dam has broken.

5:49 – “They have defended, they have executed, they have Walker, Texas Ranger.” – Jim Nantz, April 4, 2011.

5:49 - “Unparalleled ineptitude.” – Clark Kellogg, April 4, 2011.

4:36 – VanZant nails a three. How about them apples! Random Good Will Hunting reference.

 2:56 – Good shot of “Old Man” Donyell Marshall in the crowd. This game might be the most anticlimactic moment in human history. Glad I decided this would be the night to dust off the old play-by-play.

1:39 – Mack makes a three! 49-41 UConn.  Still time for more “unparalleled ineptitude.”

33.1 – Butler fouls. UConn is about to win. Its Kemba at the line of course.  He makes both free throws.

0.0 – Lamb dribbles out the clock and UConn wins their third National Championship, all of them under Jim Calhoun.  UConn’s run was extremely remarkable even though tonight has been extraordinarily anticlimactic with all the setup. I don’t want to take any credit away from UConn team because this time of college basketball is what it is, but as I mentioned before, NCAA basketball is at a crossroads and even though this atrocious game sort of magnified it, its not necessarily a great place.

The Good, The Bad, the Ugly—Part 4

We’re back for another week, my Puddlers.  I’ll be on vacation for the week of April 11-15, so there won’t be any posts that week. However, we’ll be trying to pack in as much content until that point.

Taking a break from some of the headier material that I’ve been posting over the past two weeks, I wanted to return to an old fan favorite. I thought I had done one of these posts back in the fall, but apparently I haven’t done one since last June. A lot has gone on in that time. A lot of it as been good, a lot of it has been bad, and well some of it has been just plain ugly. That’s right, my Puddlers, it's the fourth ever, THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY!

The GOOD:

- Season 4 of Mad Men. As if you couldn’t tell from the episode-by-episode synopses I put up last year, I thought Season 4 of Mad Men was phenomenal. It was their best season by far and it left us with a real cliffhanger as we wondered where Don’s head is as he starts his new marriage to the beautiful and lovely (but do we trust her?) Megan. Some phenomenal acting and episodes all around (Suitcase, Blowing Smoke, Tomorrowland). Damn, I love this show. Good thing its coming back this summer. . .

- Angles by the Strokes. Obviously you all read my review on the blog the other week. Two weeks and a thousand listens later, I still firmly believe in the greatness of this album—even the weak points make sense and feed into its overall appeal.

- Derrick Williams of the Arizona Wildcats. In case you don’t follow college basketball (and I know many of you don’t, its really not as great as it once was) Derrick Williams was quietly one of the best players in America this past year. However, his introduction to the public came this past weekend when he almost singlehandedly destroyed Duke and threw down this monster dunk. As well as taking UConn to the limit on Saturday night.  This kid is going to make it in the pros.

- This link. That’s all.

- Tolstoy’s Youth. Tolstoy wrote this “novel” or memoir when he was 28 years old and it basically sets the tonal and visionary framework for the rest of his work. Tolstoy’s observations and recollections at this stage of his life are so vivid, so far-reaching and full in their understanding that sometimes it is baffling. The descriptions he makes about nature, about how he feels when viewing other people in social gatherings are completely relatable even today. It shows the God-like powers he would use in his masterworks down the road. A must read.

- Twitter. I started in the Twitter game back in August and I have been hooked since. It’s probably the best place to see comedians work out their jokes as well as take a stab at your own one-liners. It gives great insight into what it takes to be successful as a commentator in the world today: having an opinion that people want to hear and read all the time, even at 140 character intervals. It’s also great for self-promotion, so FOLLOW ME!

- The Larry Sanders Show DVD box set. If you want to learn about comedy, comedic acting and humanity, you need to watch this show. I won't  elaborate.

- Community. This is probably the best new network comedy since 30 Rock bust on the scene. I still think its better than Parks & Recreation. I just like the sheer breadth of the places they go and the tones they take on. The characters are great as well. The latest episode inspired me to watch My Dinner With Andre, which is a fantastic movie. What other show makes a nod to another piece of art or entertainment that you actually follow up on? And are rewarded by?

- Kemba Walker. Kemba has been a big story in college basketball all season, but he has been fantastic since the Big East Tournament earlier this month. He is clutch, likeable, full of energy. He reminds me of Allen Iverson, but seems like he’d be more fun to play with and less volatile/a force of nature from another part of the universe.

- Derrick Rose. Rightly or wrongly he will be the MVP of the NBA this year. It may be voter boredom that its not LeBron or voter foolishness that its not Dwight Howard, but you can’t argue with how good Rose has been. He’s a tough competitor, great teammate and extremely talented. I like him.

- The stock market bouncing back in the past three or four months. Maybe jobs for college grads after 2006 will increase as well? Maybe?

- Boardwalk Empire. It was the best new show of the past year. It really gained steam as the season went along and I am really looking forward to Season 2. Great mixture of historical and fictional characters. Really interested to see how the Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky stories take off next year.

- Great House by Nicole Krauss. Franzen and Freedom got most of the press last year, but in my opinion Great House was the best book of 2010.

- The Social Network. This easily should have won the Oscar for Best Picture. The movie is instantly rewatchable and mesmerizing. It will be the movie we remember in 20 or 30 years. Not, The King’s Speech.

- Franco at the Oscars. I know people hated it and thought he was detached or being an ass, but, c’mon, didn’t the Oscars sort of need that? When we look back at the 2011 Oscars, it will be seen as being smack in the middle of the era of Franco. A sort of poor man’s version of the era of Brando, like when he sent a Native American woman up to accept his Oscar for the Godfather. I thought it was a piece of genius along those lines.

- Rhianna’s thighs. Come on. Did you see the NBA All-Star Game?

The BAD:

- No Mad Men until 2012. It’s looking more and more like this will be a reality. Puddles of Myself will be the homebase for people who feel like they are getting close to the edge come August or September.

- UNC losing to Kentucky. They had a better team! They should have won! Why, God? Why?!

- Freedom being overrated by the reading public. I know the reading public isn’t very large, but still, you should be ashamed. That was some serious Kool-Aid drinking. I don’t think you even knew what went into that drink.

- Outsourced on NBC. Come on!

- The White Stripes breaking up. It's the end of an era whether you want to admit it or not.

- Walking Dead getting higher ratings than Mad Men. What? People love zombies more than they love psychological and slow-moving period piece dramas that focus on a tragic main character? How dare they?

- The Pitchfork review of Angles. I can’t wait until I can use high levels of unjustified snark and bias when promoting things.

- The Tsunami in Japan.

- The Ghaddafi situation in Libya.

- The unrest in Egypt.

- This last grasp of cold weather on the east coast. Just when you want to open yourself up again, the weather drops and you pull your coat tighter, walk faster and scowl harder.

- The fact that the Los Angeles Lakers look like they might win the 2011 NBA Championship.

The UGLY:

- This was a tough choice, but when I actually thought about it, there could only be one answer:

And:

That wraps up this edition of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. We'll roll along this week with some more new content. Hopefully you will be surprised (pleasantly) by tomorrow's post.

Theoharides On...

Today, I'm happy to welcome another guest columnist (who will hopefully become a weekly contributor) to Puddles of Myself.  This writer's name is Alex Theoharides. Alex was an English major with me at Skidmore College and is also an aspiring writer of serious fiction. He currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Eventually we may get to showing off some of his fiction, but until then you can look for his takes on what is Overrated, Underrated and Properly Rated in sports, music, fiction, etc. And he may just rant about the Replacements one week.

So, now I introduce Alex Theoharides to the Puddles of Myself public.

Theoharides On Sports

Alex Theoharides

(The current NCAA Tournament and its analysis, are Overrated.)

Underrated:

Sports Fans.

The academic community holds a certain amount of malignancy for the avid sport fan.

“How can you waste you’re time with all that?” I’m often asked by, my supposedly more serious friends, with the insinuation being, of course, that there are so many more important things going on. Revolutions in the Middle East. Earthquakes rearranging the physical world. Indie rock bands. Stocks to follow.  Novels to read. Films to critique. How indeed?

Before digressing further, here’s the long and the short of it: Sports give us an opportunity to participate in life without consequences. Yes, their outcomes are unimportant. I agree, there are few things sillier than a commentator screaming, “History was made today,” after a 12-seed knocks of a 5-seed in the NCAA tournament or a teenager on a snowboard contorts his body in a previously unimagined manner. 20 years from now, hell, 10 years from now, very few people will remember what happened, who played, or what was accomplished in these allegedly historic moments. However, it is this very transitory nature of sports that allows them to be so absorbing, so important. We need a break from the heaviness of life. We need to be so consumed by the bouncing of an leather ball that we pull out our hair and scream at our television screens and pray to gods we usually pretend not to believe in.

Not Convinced? Neither am I.

I like sports because they’re fun to watch. Enough said.

Overrated:

The NCAA Tournament.

When I was in junior high, the NCAA tournament was like sex, drugs, and rock & roll, neatly packaged into a three week long CBS marathon. Now I fear, it’s grown out of control. The geniuses, who run the NCAA, decided to add an additional round to the tournament because apparently having 64 teams wasn’t enough. They needed more. And this year no one was quite when they needed to have their bracket filled out. By Thursday like every other year? Or by Tuesday to accommodate these, so called, first round games? Who knows? Who cares. Blah.

Even worse, the talking heads at ESPN and CBS have sapped much of the unpredictability out of the tournament by diagramming each team, each player, each potential outcome, ad nauseum. One of my favorite parts about the tournament was watching unheralded players from small conference teams outshining the big boys from Duke, North Carolina, or Michigan. Now all the unheralded players are over-heralded and the big boys aren’t as big as they used to be. The most talented college players leave school for the NBA after just one season, which doesn’t leave them nearly enough time to cement their hero status in NCAA pop culture. This years biggest names? Kemba Walker, a 6 foot tall, lighting bug of a point guard, who will undoubtedly have a short, unremarkable NBA career. And Jimmer Fredette, who is a gifted shooter/scorer, but couldn’t guard some of the old guys I play with at the YMCA.

Of course, come Thursday afternoon, I’ll wander over to the nearest bar of ill repute (meaning: a bar that shows sports on over-sized TVs) to watch the tournament. Not only that, I’ll have fun. But it won’t be as good as it used to be. It just won’t.

Properly Rated:

The Big East Tournament.

Often forgotten beneath the ensuing madness of the NCAA tournament, the Big East tournament annually provides some of the college basketball season’s most thrilling moments. This year was no different. My favorite team, St. John’s, was fun to watch for the first time since the days of Ron Artest and Erick Barkley ran the court for the Red Storm. Kemba Walker and the UConn Huskies proved that Jim Calhoun, despite his inability to speak without mumbling, is still one of the best coaches in college basketball. His teams are always ready to play. They rebound. Play defense. And Calhoun lets his stars shine. Rick Pitino’s Louisville squad was also impressive. I’m sick of everyone talking about how under-talented they are. Despite his recent admittance of impropriety, Pitino is one of the best recruiters in the country. The Cardinals play high-intensity, fast break basketball, and will give teams fit in the tournament.

The Big East is the best basketball conference in the NCAA. Top to bottom, its stacked with high quality players, coaches and teams. Not only that, but they play their tournament in Madison Square Garden, which as everyone who grew up listening to Mike Breen and Walt “Clyde” Frazier announce New York Knicks games, is the “World Most Famous Arena.”