Posts tagged as:

TMac

The Top 50 NBA Commercials of All Time

by Jared Wade on April 12, 2010 at 1:28 am · 8 comments

mars blackmon

In the Spring of 2007, I was just a young pup in this NBA blogging world. Since then, I have accumulated literally dozens of readers and made untold tens of dollars writing about the NBA, but back then the only people reading this blog were me and Drop Dead Fred. (He didn’t even like it … I just spammed his Gmail account with links to my posts.)

Then, on April 4, 2007, I did a post called “The Top 50 NBA Commercials of All Time” that got linked to from Henry Abbott’s new ESPN version of TrueHoop and a cavalcade of other NBA blogs that probably don’t even exist anymore and, like, 40,000 people showed up. Since my previous high in any day was somewhere south of 4 unique users, it was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, within the year I switched hosting companies and perhaps-due-to-nonpayment (who remembers really?), I lost pretty much all my old content in the transfer. It seemed like a bummer at the time, but honestly the commercial thing and like three other posts were probably the only not completely terrible things I ever did. Still, losing stuff sucks.

HOWEVER, through the miracle of the a tech-smart friend of mine, I was recently able to recover some stuff. And so, mostly because I want to put it back in my archives, I’m re-posting it as it was originally posted verbatim in April, 2007. (Thus, forgive the omission of any spots from the last three years that warrant inclusion.)

Additionally, this may as well be the formal launch of “The NBA Commercial Project,” which will be an attempt to gather links to video for every NBA commercial ever made. We’ll start with just these 50 and build on that. And that’s where I’ll need your help. Head over there and drop links to videos in the comments.

Just do it (wocka, wocka, wocka).

Check the full, original Top 50 after the jump.

[click to continue…]

{ 8 comments }

Daryl Morey and Donnie Walsh Negotiate

by Jared Wade on February 16, 2010 at 12:49 pm · 4 comments

I have long operated under the assumption that trade rumors are probably the dumbest thing about the NBA — and most likely all of sports. The nonproductive nature of all the discussion and writing centered around things that will probably never happen both bores me to tears and sort of disappoints me since all the people involved could certainly doing more enjoyable things than collectively wasting everyone’s time.

But this all goes out the window when I see this “video” from found by Skeets and the Ball Don’t Lie crew (UPDATE: that was actually created by smoothie of the Houston Clutch Fans forum) featuring Rockets GM Daryl Morey and Knicks GM Donnie Walsh negotiating the rumored TMac for Jordan Hill, 47 first-round picks, Al Harrington and Jared Jeffries deal.

And it goes about as well as for Donnie as the negotiation at the end of Michael Clayton goes for Tilda Swinton.

{ 4 comments }

This one should be easy. Take a rocket, maybe add some fire or an explosion, and you’re done. So why does the Rockets logo look like it was lifted from the cover of a teen vampire novel?

Johnny Logo Designer must have been a closet goth, but you’ve got to at least give him credit for convincing the organization that the obvious bloody fang and stake motif was actually an abstract rocket or something. He was probably a big hit at the local Hot Topic for pulling that off.

The problem is that abstract only works when you’re a team like the Knicks whose name doesn’t mean anything. When you’re the Rockets, you use — wait for it — a fucking rocket. It’s not rocket science (wocka wocka). About the only good aspect of their logo is that they didn’t include the a basketball in the image. It amazes me that so many teams have found this necessary considering that the use of a basketball is implied by the fact that they are, surprise, a basketball team.

It’s good thing that the Twilight books didn’t come out until a few years after Houston debuted this logo or someone might have a spooky lawsuit on their hands — although the Buffy the Vampire Slayer people might want to consult an attorney since I wouldn’t put it past this franchise to “bite” something from pop culture. I mean, do you think the Rockets name was a coincidence when the team started in San Diego in the late 1960s during the height of the space program? It’s not like naming your team, say, the Raptors because Jurassic Park was number one at the box office, but still.

In the end, we are dealing with a basketball team logo here. It’s not supposed to be fine art. And if you really think about it, the vampire logo might actually be appropriate. After all, Yao and T-Mac are pretty much the living dead.

And just like their careers, it’s probably time to drive a stake into this logo’s heart.

Dig it.

Morgan O’Rourke is editor in chief of Risk Management magazine. When he’s not listening to music, he enjoys swearing at his television while watching the Mets and Knicks.

rockets logo

Unlike True Blood, there will be no naked Anna Paquin at Rockets games.

{ 4 comments }

Tracy McGrady Drinks Sprite

by Jared Wade on February 10, 2009 at 2:49 pm · 0 comments

Oh, Tracy. This just aint your season. (via FanHouse)

{ 0 comments }