I’m guessing Bill Simmons is going to fall into the “toss this off as just words” category, but I figured I may as well follow up on yesterday’s Baron Davis post with his new message to Clippers fans.
I want to make sure you know that EVERYONE at the Clippers is committed to doing whatever is necessary to make sure that you don’t have to deal with another year like the one that just ended. I’m dedicating myself to that goal, and I know my teammates will do the same. There are probably those who will read this and toss it off as just words, but I can only write these words with hope that the feeling and sentiment is conveyed. Whether you believe us or not, please know that we’re all going to work hard to improve everyday and be a far better team than we showed this past season.
A Chinese proverb awaits if you decide to head over to his blog and read the rest.
After seeing the previous post, Joey was kind enough to inform me that yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of the triumphant press conference that spawned the name of this site. (Apparently, Kornheiser celebrated it on PTI.) For those of us in the Both Teamsters Union, this is cause to rejoice. And for the uninitiated, here’s the back-story care of an SI column looking back at the “Highlights and Lowlights” of the first round of the 2003 Playoffs and video of Sheed’s infamous repetition.
Worst quote: “It was a good game. Both teams played hard.” — Blazers forward Rasheed Wallace after his team’s victory in Game 4. By giving the same non-answer to five questions at a postgame news conference, Wallace was fined $30,000 by the NBA.
“Worst quote,” Marty Burns? I’ll burn down your house.
(You can also read the Game 4 recap if you’ve really have enough time on your hands to be reading six-year-old game recaps from first round Playoff series. I certainly did. Nice third quarter, Mavs.)
I both praised one of the best hoops websites on this here planet while making the announcement that Joey of the website Straight Bangin’ is now writing regularly for FreeDarko. And he done tored it up with his first post the other day, which talks about the duality of this year’s Playoffs being both great because we get to watch the Leaders of the New School (Bron, CP3, Flash, Dwight, Deron, Rose, etc.) but also downtrodden because we have to endure the demise of the hallmarks of the post-MJ era (Deeeee-Trooooiiit BAS-KET-BALL, the Spurs, KG, The Answer, Shaq missing on a milk carton and even Timmy to some degree).
For as much good as we’ve seen, there’s been an equal amount of bad. At least, for me, there has been. It’s an odd duality well captured by the Celtics, in fact. As sad as it is to watch Kevin Garnett reduced to the world’s most profane, best-dressed cheerleader, Rajon Rondo’s playoff performance has been a sensational counter, offering the sort of boundary-challenging performance we like to celebrate and mythologize. Of course, it likely comes from necessity precisely because Kevin is hurt. I don’t think one necessarily trumps the other, but this year, the bad seems to be a consequence of the good in a way that’s more pronounced than usual.
Kid has game. (Hip hop heads should stay up on Straight Bangin’, too, where he’s been dropping gems like this post about Raekwon for years.)
Furthermore, you should be checking out FreeDarko every day during the Playoffs. They’re cool dudes and they’re staying active.
I have to laugh every time someone says the NBA isn’t as good as it used to be. Sure, expansion means that there are fewer teams who have a legitimate eight-man rotation and those that do (i.e., the Lakers and Cavs) are automatically that much better than the rest of the League, but the individual talent level throughout the Association has risen so high over the past three or four years that historically great performances and plays have been happening at least once a week since November.
Nowhere is this more apparent than at the point guard position.
Of course, we all know about the two great gifts bestowed upon us by the 2005 Draft: Chris Paul and Deron Williams. And we’re all very familiar with the resumes of Jason Kidd, Steve Nash and Chauncey Billups, who raised his legacy to even further heights by playing out his goddamn mind in the first two games of this year’s Playoffs. But as Marc Stein so aptly pointed out in his great column today, we also now have Rajon Rondo and Derrick Rose putting on the best PG vs. PG show of the postseason thus far. Throw in Devin Harris’ ascension, Andre Miller’s overlooked-yet-always-dependable floor generalship, Jameer Nelson’s evolution and Rodney Stuckey’s potential, and we’re looking at a renaissance that can make even the most jaded NBA onlooker forget all about the Starbury/Franchise-led, shoot-first era of point guards.
And then there’s Tony Parker, who has had a better season than any of em.
Since tomorrow night could very well mark last game of a truly transcendant season where he morphed from solid, trustworthy player who could make a few big plays down the stretch to a guy who no player in the League can stop from getting to the rim, I just wanted to spend a few words praising his play this year. But since you don’t really wanna read me go on and on about how some French guy has put an entire team you probably haven’t enjoyed watching for at least four years on his back and carried them for the past 50 games, just go read Kevin Arnovitz’s great breakdown of just exactly how unguardable Mr. Parker has become. And, yes, I know Jason Kidd has some serious defensive issues at this stage of his career, but Tony has been doing this to the whole League to the tune of 24 ppg, 7.5 apg and 3.5 rpg on 52% shooting since the All-Star break, largely due to a newly lethal mid-range game that allows him to pull-up whenever his defender sags three feet — something every guard in the NBA has to do if they wanna keep the fiery Francophile, the Parisian Torpedo (see video below) in front of them.
So even though the Spurs will probably get uncermoniously bounced by the Mavs tomorrow, don’t be surprised when Tony’s flirting with 25 ppg next year.
Much like AIDS, it’s pretty safe to assume that just about everyone is anti-Von Wafer. Essentially, you don’t see a lot of people walking around with the word “Wafer” on the back of their Rockets jersey and every time I’m watching a Houston game with a non-NBA diehard and they see Mr. Wafer, the general response is “Who’s the dbag with the mohawk?”
On the other hand, he is a surprisingly decent NBA player who somehow makes an unusual number of out-of-nowhere big plays. He’s sort of like a boring, poor-man’s version of JR Smith without all the tattoos.
Most relevantly, his real name isn’t even Von. It’s actually Vakeaton Quamar Wafer, which is amazing, yet for some reason he has decided to go by Von. And goathair of The Blowtorch has had enough.
This Von Wafer situation is really busting my beans. I couldn’t even enjoy my nightly watching of A Walk to Remember starring Mandy Moore. It’s really bugging me that we’re letting Von Wafer’s transgressions go unchecked. Someone needs to speak truth to Wafer.
Throwing out his last name, because he can’t help it, let’s realize that there is actually somebody in 21st century America who has CHOSEN the name Von. This isn’t 16th century Germany, nor is it a 1980s video game about boxing.
And yeah, he CHOSE that name. I cannot stress this enough, which is why I’m capitalizing it every time I mention it. Von was given the name Vakeaton Quamar, which as far as I can tell means “Squatting Dog,” but is also a pretty great name in a 60s activist kind of way. But upon being gifted with that wonderful name, this guy CHOSE “Von.” There is no conceivable series of events that I can imagine picking that name. It doesn’t really relate to Vakeaton that much, and it makes him sound like a tyrant.
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