Yesterday, Jason Richardson, one of the greatest dunkers I’ve ever seen, missed a wide-open, breakaway dunk with less than a minute to go in a game that the Suns would end up losing to the Spurs. Those two points would have tied the game. (video via Basketbawful)
Also, yesterday, I wrote some stuff about Tyler Hansbrough’s vertigo-like affliction, which has become “officially troubling” in my eyes and will likely shut him down for the rest of his wasted rookie season in the eyes of his coach.
As most Both Teamsters know, I enjoy the hippity hop music quite a bit. Still, despite all the years of listening and debating, I’ve never been able to chose a favorite MC of all time. But depending on which day you asked me, I would definitely say one of three names: Jadakiss, Rakim or Big L.
Cormega, Scarface, Masta Ace and Sean P have all flirted with entrance into that top tier while Common, Ras Kass and Mos have probably rapped their way right out of the conversation, but the top three remain essentially unassailable at this point. Mainly this is because (a) Jada is Jada, (b) my love for Rakim is mostly based on history and nostalgia anyways, and (c) Big L is dead and no one is ever moving him off the list. I’m not sure if this is a universal sentiment, but I think, like the whole “you can’t lose your starting job to injury” theory in sports, a rapper can’t lose his spot due to death.
Either way, all this prologue is basically just a long way to note the sad fact that today is the 11th anniversary of the day Big L was killed. And the reason this is basketball-related is because, as most of you probably already know, L often spit about the NBA. In fact, I’ve been aggregating all the best NBA-related lyrics of all time for some time over on the NBA Lyric Project page (which needs some serious updating), and by far my favorite one is: “Fuck all the glamors and glitz, I plan to get rich, I’m from New York and never was a fan of the Knicks.”
I aint from New York, but I have now lived here for a decade, and since I have been a diehard Pacers/Reggie Miller fan since the early 90s, you can believe that a lot of my love for that line comes from how much I agree with the late, great Lamont Coleman on this one. So in memory of one of the best to ever touch a mic, below is Big L’s legendary “‘98 Freestyle.” (Highly NSFW lyrics)
I’ll spare you hoops heads who may not care about hip hop any more rapper reminiscing, but my thoughts on where Big L was about to take lyricism right before he died can best be summed up by Jadakiss, who was rhyming about another Big from New York at the time: “I could go on for a year about how it’d be if you was still here.”
After dropping that Luc Longley shrimp-naming story in your laps this morning, I now feel somewhat vindicated … but guilt remains about the lack of activity on BTPH last week. I swear it wasn’t just lethargy though. Been busy other places.
Here’s the proof and, thus, some other stuff you can read.
The Pacers had two of the worst offensive performances that any team will have this season on Friday and Saturday evenings. Recount the horror against the Jazz on Friday and against the Clippers on Saturday.
My thoughts on the Sacramento Kings over at Cowbell Kingdom for Zach Harper and my more specific thoughts on Sacto’s future Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans. I really dig these Kings, mostly because of Tyreke and their other rookie Omri Casspi, who is the first NBA player from Isreal, a guy who I will be writing something more in depth about on here at BTPH rather soon and a guy who I categorized in that CK piece as “a Santa sack full of never-ending awesome.”
I guess that’s it, other than a bunch of other Pacers stuff you can’t possibly be interested in. Might be slow around here for a couple more days, but I will have something more on Casspi eventually and something on Donald Sterling, which is already long overdue.
It’s weird that I like Omri Casspi so much cause, normally, I hate Jews.
Been caught up in a few things that you’ll hear more about soon, so that’s the delay in the postcard stuff. I’ll be back on that in a minute, even if they’ll be more “team outlooks” at this point than previews. Same difference. Plus, they will still be free to look at.
Might get something else up here today or might not.
In the meantime, here’s where else you can find me:
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