YAYsports! NBA

We felt really bad for TJ Potato during the draft last night.

You really just hate to see anyone get drafted by the Timberwolves, especially someone who’s a budding corporation and such.

TJ looked crushed, and rightly so - MINN is for guys who are just gonna disappear anyway, like the 27 guys in the first round of this draft not named Rose/Beasley/Potato.

Luckily, during DRAFT II: AFTERDRAFT, our young glasses-wearer was traded to Memphis, where we’re 15% less sad for him.

Since absolutely nothing else about this draft will ever matter (except that CHI/MEM now have excess PGs to trade to CLE), let’s focus on a discussion we had lasterday with not one, but two people, in various forms: LeBron to the Nets in 2010.

You see, at this point, any time anyone on the Nets ties their shoe, it’s reason for 150 articles about how it’s a sign that LeBron is going there when his free agency hits - travelling to Brooklyn to be the savior in their new arena that still isn’t being built, nor has agreements in place to be built, although it’s been “imminent” for 6 years.

Richard Jefferson gets traded to MIL for garbage - LeBron to the Nets! Yes, because LeBron wants to play in a non-existent building for a team consisting of Devin Harris, Tall Chinese Guy #2, and the Short Haired Frankenstein Twin.

All so he can hang out with Jay-Z more. Because all Jay-Z, owner of a hearty 5% (2%?) of the team, does is sit around at Nets HQ waiting to hang out with LeBron.

It’s simply not realistic, and this isn’t because we’re a Cleveland fan - remember, we soured on LeBron two years ago during the Malaise season. Let’s run it down, AGAIN:

1) LBJ’s focus is on China (and the global market). The Chinese market doesn’t care if he plays in NJ, NY, or CLE. The money will be the same.

2) LeBron is human, and he is from Akron, and he does like it there, from everything we know. He appears to care about his family more than basketball/business.

3) The Cavs are better than the Nets, and are clearly better run than the Nets. They’re also poised to make huge moves and have space next summer wrt the salary cap, so the big overhaul/acquisition is in position to happen right here and now. And he does want to win*, not just hang out with Jay-Z, which he can do all the time, anyway.

4) History/legacy-wise, bringing the city of Cleveland its first championship in 50+ years is far more significant than anything he could do for the Nets. Doubly so since he’s from there.

*This sums up our current feelings on LeBron. During the Malaise season, you may remember that we thought he might be a more talented Vince Carter. We’ve since amended that to something equally as gruesome - he’s kinda A-Rod to us. LeBron wants to win, but only because it’s good for the brand, not because he internally needs to.

The loss to the Celtics in Game 7 was great evidence for this - we believe a correct paraphrasing of his statement is, “The loss is fine; it was great to be a part of a historic battle with Paul Pierce that will be remembered,” or something to that effect.

We could be wrong, who knows. He’s young still. It’s just not want we want from our athletes. We may come around again on him again.

POOR TJ POTATO!

(Michael Jordan is still the coolest dude ever.)

Well, Jermaine O’Neal has finally attained his dream of playing second fiddle to a younger big man on a team in another country.

For someone with long-standing self-esteem and image issues, this guy being traded to the Raptors (for TJ Ford, of whom we will likely never of again) is maybe the worst thing that could ever happen.

The man has long thought himself “the man”, and surely thinks he was supposed to be part of some league-shaking, KG-to-BOS level, weeks-long media frenzy, type of mega deal.

But no, he was traded for an average PG with a bad back/neck, and a mid-first round pick in a weak draft.

One thing of significance is that this changes all of the 57 separate blog-related mock drafts (and live blogs of those drafts) that we participated in lasterday. We’re willing to do them all again - we love that stuff.

In short, this makes the Raptors a smidge better if Mr. Jermaine is healthy, and changes the Pacers not at all.

Other news to report - we saw a preview screening of Hancock, and we can’t really say we liked it enough or disliked it enough to even say anything about it.

We love anything Will Smith does, and he’s very good in this, although he never says, “Welcome to Earf!”

On the story side, there are some decent concepts and ideas being presented within the superhero genre. That said, there are too many of those decent concepts and ideas, and none of them are fully explored, leaving you walking out kinda indifferent.

It’s as if there was a really good movie there, but there were big pieces of it missing. Like we said, is that good, bad, or what? We have no idea.

The NBA Draft, of course, is tonight. To complete our clean coverage of the 2008 NBA season, we won’t be watching it, and may or may not write something about it tomorrow, depending on how we feel and what else we have to do.

We’re trying, two days later, to figure out why there are four trophies in this picture.

Is it to represent PP/KG/Doc/Ray Allen*? Is it because we’re almost four days from the draft?

Is it because Michael Beasley is basketball person?

YES, is the answer. By all accounts, Michael Beasley is basketball person. In fact, if you read this article from ESPN, it says it right in there.

The Chicago Bulls had Michael Beasley in the gym on Tuesday [and he is basketball person].

Does that mean the Bulls will take him? Who knows - apparently Derrick Rose is basketball person, as well!

Anyway, we’ll return to this sometime in September. For now, let’s take a stab at the various trade Varejao rumors floating around Planet Cavaliers.

Michael Redd, Charlie Villanueva, Elton Brand, etc, etc. We say any of those will work.

Chances are AV is gonna opt out at the end of this year, and that being the case, chances are even better he’s going to be “applying himself inappropriately” on offense, as he is prone to do.

Yeah, we know you have to put together a package and such - that’s not really our thing. We just want to sit up in the office above the front office and be all, “Hey, trade him for something better than him.”

Now, we know we’ve posted for almost 477 straight days, but this may be our last transition. We’re about to pop in that Leopard disc and upgrade. We’ve never done this before - being a Mac, we’re sure it’s easy and simple and not hard.

But still…we are stupid. This has been verified.

*One of our favorite images from the in-game Finals celebration was watching KG and Pierce trying to get Ray Allen to loosen up. That’s not a knock on Allen, it’s just funny.

We want to extend a genuine gratitude for the fine folks at ABC for concentrating their cameras, feeds, and attention on the Boston players last night, instead of the Boston fans.

It allowed us to feel some joy for KG and Ray Allen, and even a little bit for Paul Pierce, aside from that weird moment when he pretended Doc Rivers was a football coach.

We’ll even admit that we shed a couple tears during Garnett’s eloquent and well-spoken interview with Michelle Tafoya (sp).

If you didn’t see it, we think we can sum it up by simply repeating what we believe was the fourth sentence of his speech: “Blllllarhv fisnwosvbnalkhl, HBaesijfn!!!!”

Now, celebrations aside, we must concentrate on our absolute favorite part of the entire broadcast - the NBA DOT COM commercial for Celtics championship gear that played right after the win.

We don’t have it to post for you, but basically, it was a bunch of ecstatic families decked out in Celtics 2008 t-shirts and hats, photoshopped in front of a cheering Boston crowd.

It looked so fake and cheesy, we almost bought some stuff.

The only other thing we can take from this whole mess, is that as much as we love Kobe, we love Michael Jordan so much more. Really, really weird what happened to him in these Finals - we don’t know why he didn’t score points and put the basketball inside of the basketball hoop with his hands more.

All we do know is that every single time anyone scored in Game 6, we yelled “BASKET!!” at the top of our lungs. After about a quarter of that, it becomes the funniest thing in the world, even if you’re all by yourself.

We feel somewhat sorry that our 28-part post on the future of each team no longer playing this season overshadowed Father’s Day.

(Between that and liveblogging everything we can, it’s been crazy.)

Therefore, we’re writing a belated Father’s Day post - this is a little tribute we wrote to one of the most dedicated dads in the NBA, Robert Horry.

One day Robert Horry saw me and my best friend, Stephon Marbleberries, eating popcorn at the movies.
He sat down behind us, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Hey, I want to be your new dad. I’m Robert Horry. I am basketball person.”
And I was like, “I got a dad, I’m not tryin’ to hear that, see?”
He was all, “What’s your dad got to do with me?”
And I was like, “I’m not tryin’ to hear that, see?”
Horry was all, “You got a dad?”
And me is all, “I got a dad.”
And Horry up with the, “What’s your dad got to do with me?”
And here I was all, “I simply can’t imagine what I could possibly need two separate fathers for.”
Horry come with, “What’s your dad got to do with me?”
And I’m all, “I’m tryin’ to watch Iron Man and eat popping corn with my best friend Stephon Marbleberries, see?”
Horry’s all, “I’m out! Peace!”

As you can see, it was a fun day at the movies, but we missed the part of Iron Man with the man in the metal suit in it. We’re going to see “Green Monster Who Punches Things” tomorrow - hopefully Robert has found another son, and we can watch it in peace.

Game 6 of the NBA Finals, as you may have heard, is tonight. TrueHoop wonders if the NBA has the alleged company men on the job.

ESPN.com - True Hoop - Blog 6/17/08 7:36 AM webmaster@espn.go.com

That’s an understatement!

We’re picking the Lakers, because there’s just no way the universe would not allow a Game 7 between the Celtics and Lakers. PLus, no matter how many times he says otherwise, Kobe is due to go off for 50 at least once, isn’t he?

(We concede that Coach Mike might know something aboot defense. However, Coach Phil allegedly knew something aboot defense before this series. Somepling is amiss.)

With all the uproar over our post from a couple weeks ago finally dying down, we think we can finally explain what we meant when we said that Kobe isn’t as good as LeBron.

Here, let’s pull a quote from our own text, yank it apart, then put it all back together.

Kobe isn’t as good as LeBron. Once the dust settles from this bold statement (ina few weeks?), we’ll yank that statement apart, explain it, then put it back together.

What we meant is simple: Kobe isn’t as good as LeBron at being basketball person.

Now, as for Lakers-Celtics, this series is just anti-climactic. After not watching almost the entire Playoffs, not watching this has been a real let-down.

Moving on - Tiger Woods is golf person. We’re watching this today, and we’re rooting for Tiger. Why? Because if we root for the older guy, then we’re rooting for old people. We don’t wanna root for old people - we want younger people to thrive.

Hense, our official endorsement of Barack Obama. One, he’s young - in fact he’s the same age as the old man golfer who we won’t root for because he’s old. Two, he’s planning on putting a basketball court in the White House.

That’s pretty much everything on our plate this morning. Our shin splint is acting up, so there’s that we’ll have to deal with. If you’re wondering how that’s going, feel free to email us with the subject line, “HOW IS YOUR SHIN SPLINT DOING? I HEARD IT IS ACTING UP.”

Make sure it’s in caps —> yaysports@gmail.com

Remember lasterday when we were all upset at Kobe because of how he Facebooked us and was all like, “Facebook in your face!” and then we were like, “Use the phone, like a real man!”*

Well, we need to fess up - the cold facts are right here - it was all a ruse to make everyone think Kobe wasn’t our friend anymore.

The truth is, we are friends - in that special way where two people who don’t know each other are friends. Let’s roll back the clock a bit, and shed some light on the situation:

JANUARY 12, 2008

It was cold. So cold that we couldn’t feel how cold it was. The metaphors were rolling all around, and for the first time, we had decided we were going to put water into our mouth before brushing our teeths.

It worked - the way the brush scrubbed our mouth was cleaner, and more exciting than ever before. Not only that, but that was the day we bought three separate kinds of combined hair and body wash (Dove, Old Spice, Coast), plus all kinds of skin care products.

“It’s the new you!” we said into the mirror.

“That’s right!” the us in the mirror said back.

It was that day we realized we weren’t right in the head, but at least we’re not this guy.

Awake, awake, awake.

Does it continue? One does not know.

We haven’t watched the Finals barely at all, because everyone on the Celtics makes us want to throw up. Paul Pierce, by the way, didn’t get carried off in Game One because he was faking - he got carried off because he’s…chubby like a baby.

That’s right - some things never change. We hope to Zeus that Boston wins Game 5, because we really, really, really don’t want to have to watch another BOS celebration in BOS.

* Facebook for Blackberry killed our Blackberry last night.

UPDATE: Well, we’re pretty excited, because we can now offically retire the thought/speech-bubble portion of the site.

No longer will we use that device in any way, shape, or form.

You see, when we see a funny bit that’s used frequently by another person in a similar area of creative pursuits as us, we immediately put it on an unofficial list of “things we won’t adopt in our own work”.

It’s a thing called “creative integrity”, and you’ve seen it rile us up many times before (see: Lupica, StopMike & Roundie, Orange). We’re this close to unleashing our rant. THIS CLOSE.

But we won’t, because it’s not the right time.

When the time comes, we’ll be sure to reprint the block of text that sums it all up, wherein a now prominent NBA blogger sent us an email asking all about how to Photoshop, because he “wants to start a site exactly like yours. You’re okay with that, right?”

Imagine, if you will, our attempt to answer that question. Somehow, we managed to only get out something to the affect of, “sure”. Basically, this is because we couldn’t believe someone would actually write that.

It’s like Live-blogging the NBA Draft - WHY?

Why would you possibly want to do that? That’s totally Bill Simmons’s “thing”. He didn’t invent live-blogging, and he didn’t invent the NBA Draft, but he did pair the two and make it a signature piece, to the point that any NBA Draft live-blog is a knock-off. And why would you chose to do a knock-off, full-well knowing it’s a knock-off? (If you don’t understand what that last sentence really means, you shouldn’t be trying to do creative things.)

(Also, parody is different than a knock-off - good parody is a challenge unto itself and also perfectly acceptable.)

Look, we don’t mean to set ourself up as the moral authority of creating blog content, but the fact is, we’re usually right on this stuff, so we ARE the moral authority of creating blog content.

All that said, we may quit blogging until the movie is released. Why keep doing this? We’ll decide by Friday - we know we go back and forth on this all the time and we’re a baby about it, but really, it’s just gotten old. (We’re sure we’ll keep going - we’re just having a moment.)

Of course, between now and then, we’re sure someone will announce they’re shooting a movie called “Who Is the One Who Killed the Snake With a Gun?”, at which point we don’t really know what we’ll do.

***PRE-UPDATE SECTION***

Oh man - we finally did it. MCBias (We think? Was it Jordi?) told us once he was dying for us to go off on how we really feel about the sports blogosphere and blogs in general, and we did it. It was brutal, AND it called sites out by name, accompanied by our specific criticism and/or beef.

But THEN???

Then we found these two pics of Chris Bosh, which lightened our entire mood up. The thing about them is, they’re about ten times funnier in Photoshopped form if you see the originals. Thus we post them below, with our work to come in a bit.

Gah - we don’t know what to think - we didn’t quite get to those Bosh PSs.

We have no time for Photoshop, etc today, but we know you need to read our thoughts on this -

Believe it or not, this actually has me contemplating getting League Pass for the rest of the season.

It’s not Gasol-to-the-Lakers or anything, but look at the dynamics of how LeBron plays, and you have be a little curious.

Drive and dump to Ben…Ben can handle that, and we’re not entirely convinced (although we’re sure we wrote the opposite in the past) that Ben is completely washed up. Remember, he’ll be playing power forward for CLE, which paired with Z, makes them pretty big upfront.

Wally is perfect for LeBron - doesn’t have to handle the ball - just stand out there and shoot it.

Getting rid of Larry Hughes is great for chemistry, and as far as contracts, they’ve added nothing extraordinary in the long term.

We’ve always felt Delonte West was a good PG for a LeBron James, as well.

We’re down with this deal - it’s a risk, but a calculated one.

UPDATE: The infamous Farlane sent us this lil’ thing he made for us, inaccurately depicting what happened when we heard about the trade: