The NBA: Maximizing my free time

Durant to the Warriors is a joke. At least, however, it saves me from watching meaningless, one-sided games.

Even with parity the NBA regular season is a sham, but now it’s ridiculous. Next season I’ll watch a game or two in November out of curiosity, maybe one with the Cavs when it comes up, and an occasional Clippers and/or Spurs game.

That’s it. Wake me up in May. I don’t even care about the first round.

Durant to the Warriors

Maybe the Warriors can get LeBron too. Why stop at Kevin Durant? All the stars should congeal on one team which will save us the time of having to watch regular season games. We’ll tune in during June for the Dream Team exhibition Finals while the one per centers enjoy their corporate luxury suites.

I’m just about at the end of my rope with sports which has turned into a corporate, joyless cesspool full of overpriced arenas, arrogant, over-paid athletes, and tedious replay reviews. The only thing that keeps me going is inertia – I’ve been watching practically my entire life and old habits are difficult to break.  That, and I’d like to see the Mets win one more time.

The toughest thing will be what to talk about in social situations and on gigs.  I’m going to have to come up with an entire new set of topics.  Comic books anyone?  How about basket weaving instead of basketball.

Warriors no more

The Golden State Warriors won a record 73 games in the 2015-16 season but will be remembered for being the first team to blow a 3-1 lead in games in the NBA finals.  That’s the way it goes in sports.  The Cleveland Cavaliers were the better team and deserve the title.  A spate of injuries, Steph Curry’s shooting slump,  LeBron James’ greatness, and the one game Draymond Green suspension were fatal to the Warriors.

All that said, LeBron is hard to take.  What is he, faking an injury in the last minute of game 7?  With seconds to go in the game he’s writhing around on the floor seemingly in pain, yet after the game buzzer sounded  he’s pounding the ground in joy with the same hand!  Then he’s crying tears of joy?  For the city of Cleveland?  That’s the same city he said screw you to 6 years ago when he took his talents to South Beach.  And it’s the same city he’s libel to say screw you to this off season.

In his post game comments James didn’t even bother to mention the Warriors.  You would think he would note the fact that they were a great team, or congratulate them on a great season, but no.  Everything was self-directed:  “I competed, I looked inside of myself, I did this, I did that…”  Enough already.  We don’t need LeBron to tell us he’s great –  we know that already.  And if that wasn’t enough, James rubbed salt in the wound by wearing an Ultimate Warrior shirt as he disembarked from the team plane in Cleveland.  Stay classy.

But that is the society we live in now.  This is a cynical, dog eat dog, Darwinian world.  Athletes, as well as media stars and politicians have taken their cue from the nasty, smarmy tone of reality TV.  The age of classy winners is in the rear view mirror.

We turn the page.  Time for the baseball season and a little team called The New York Mets!   On the other hand, maybe I’ll read a book instead.

 

The NBA Finals and the Warriors quest for greatness

It’s been a monumental season for the Golden State Warriors.  They won a record-setting 73 and proceeded to plow through the first two rounds of the playoffs.  They won an epic 7 game conference final series against an outstanding Thunder team and they now find themselves one win away from their second straight championship.

Tonight’s game 5 featured epic performances by the Cleveland Cavalier’s LeBron James – (41 points, 16 rebounds, and 7 assists + 3 steals and 2 blocks!) and Kyrie Irving  (41 points, 6 rebounds,  3 assists, and 2 steals.)  Yet it seemed like something was missing from the Warriors offense and defense.  Oh yeah…Draymond Green missed the game after being suspended for a specious flagrant foul committed in game 4.

It’s bad enough that the refs have to review every hard foul but to have to wait two days for the league officials to pour over evidence as if it was the Zapruder film adds insult to injury. Am I the only person in the world who hates replay in all sports?  Folks, enough is enough.  This childish obsession with getting it right is killing the game’s momentum.  If the evidence has to be incontrovertible how can a play that takes two days to review be overturned?  It’s even worse in baseball, a sport that is slow enough on its own.

The Warriors were jobbed.  I’m not saying that they would have won game 5 — Curry and Barnes had sub par games and LeBron and Irving were unstoppable.  But wouldn’t it have been nice to see how that game would have played out with the teams at full strength?

Super Bowl post mortum

I didn’t care for this game that much.  Sure Denver’s D is one for the ages and they were awe-inspiring, but the game had no flow.  Peyton Manning was underwhelming and well past his prime.  I could have quarterbacked the Broncos to a victory with that defense.

The game was played in Santa Clara and as I was driving over the Bay Bridge on my way to my gig in San Francisco I could see the blimp way in the distance to the south.  I was driving during halftime and San Fran was like a ghost town.  Least traffic ever.

Cam Newton is taking a beating for walking out of his post game press conference.  There had been a huge to-do the week before the game in the press and on social media about Newton’s flashy persona and how it was unprofessional.  (Full disclosure, I had to google dabbing)  This was an overreaction and had the whiff of racism.  There have been plenty of white quarterbacks who celebrate touchdowns, and in the end, who cares?

But with the press conference, I believe Cam had to step up and endure the 10-15 minutes of inane questions.  If you’re going to be a gloating-gloater when you succeed then you have to be graceful in defeat as well.

And with that we enter the dark days of sports.  For the next two months there is nothing but excruciatingly dull mid-season basketball and hockey.  I can’t get excited about pitchers and catchers and spring training.  It does nothing for me.  I’ll see you all on Sunday, April 3rd.

P.S.  OK, I know about the NCAAs but I DON’T CARE.

A lull in the sports world

This is a terrible sports time of year but it’s not the worst — that dishonor belongs to February with its glut of meaningless NBA, NHL, & NCAA basketball games. Still, this is pretty bad.  The NFL playoffs are a month away and the bowl season, if you care about that sort of thing, won’t kick in for another two weeks.

Here in the Bay Area we had the Warriors winning streak to follow which was exciting.  How strange it was to care about basketball in November. Now that they’ve finally lost, their next meaningful game will be in April.

The worst thing about November through January is being bombarded with baseball player signing news.  This is the time of year where I learn that Jason Heyward, a pretty good, but not great player, will earn more in one at bat then I will in a year.  It’s out of control.  I get it – it’s nothing new –  supply and demand, free market, yadda yadda.  It’s just that I would rather not hear and read about salaries at all.  It takes me until June or July, when the pennant races begin heating up, to get the taste out of my mouth.

Not only is the baseball news a capitalist sack of you know what, the local football teams stink this year.  While the Raiders are much improved and are still mathematically alive, the 49ers are a stinking mess.

What else do I have to complain about?  Oh yeah, I haven’t done my Christmas shopping.

 

Show and tell

Here are some odds and ends while we come up for air from the weekend’s basketball bacchanal.  It was a rainy week in the Bay Area, complete with thunderstorms and golf ball-sized hail.  Coming home from a gig on Friday night the streets appeared as if they were coated with an inch of snow.  It was the remnants of a brief hail storm.  (Aren’t all hail storms brief?  I’ve never heard of an extended one, with the exception of the apocalypse)  A lot of people were outside checking out the ice-coated streets.  I heard that someone was seen skiing down the main drag.   I took this photo from my garage as I was unloading my keyboard.

  There was a Supermoon on Saturday night.   The moon was at its closest point to Earth while it was full, thus the fancy moniker.  We didn’t get to see it since it rained all weekend, but I found this photograph online taken by someone fortunate enough to be in good weather.

Supermoon

 

Finally, here is a photo I took on a break during a gig I played in San Francisco last Wednesday.  I was at a restaurant on the Embarcadero, a main thoroughfare which runs along the edge of the bay.  This was one of the few times during the week that it stopped raining, and it made for a nice photograph.   It looks like there is a rainbow in the photo, but it’s not —  just some nice cloud formations.   

A different take on the Melo trade

A few days ago I posted about the Carmelo Anthony trade, saying that the Knicks had mortgaged their future.  Shortly after posting I received a great rebuttal from Sherm, whose blog is called The Widening Geier. 

Mortgaged their future? I think you have it exactly backwards. This was about getting another bona fide scorer to build around in the future irrespective of the needs of this year’s team. True, this year’s team can’t rebound or play defense, but they’ll try to compliment Melo and Amar’e with guys who can over the next couple of years. Trading away young players and sacrificing cap space for guys who would fill the holes in this year’s team (rebounding and defense) would have been mortgaging the future. Clearly, the plan is to save cap space to add either Chris Paul or Deron Williams after next season and then get some cheap role players to defend and rebound. And lets not forget that Melo is a premier rebounding small forward as well.

The only player of any value they gave up was Gallinari. Chandler is a restricted FA at the end of the year and they were not going to waste cap space resigning him. Randolph has no offensive game at all. Mozgov was a project with terrible hands. Felton is a nice player, but a dime a dozen point guard and only under contract for one more year (same as Billips). They gave Felton two years knowing that Paul and Williams would be free agents after 2011-12 season.

Sherm makes a great point about Melo’s rebounding — in his Knicks debut he pulled down 10 boards versus the Bucks.  This to go along with his team-high 27 points.  Another great point is that after years of being saddled with salary-cap restrictions, the Knicks are finally in a position of having room to sign star players.  Clearly they will be able to augment this lineup in the offseason.

My problem with this team continues to be the coach — Mike D’antoni —  who is content to live and die by the three-point shot.  No matter how many great shooting forwards or point guards that the Knicks add, I cannot see them winning more than one round of playoffs playing the level of D that we have grown accustomed to under D’antoni.

Clyde

Those of you not lucky enough to live in the New York area have probably not heard the greatest color commentator in the NBA.  I am speaking, of course, of one-time Knicks guard Walt Frazier.  One the things I miss most about living in New York is not getting to hear him on a regular basis.

As a star point guard he quarterbacked the Knicks to their only two championships in 1970 and 1973.  At one point he held Knick records for assists, points, free throws, field goals made, and free throws made.  Most of these records would later be eclipsed by Patrick Ewing but his assist record stands to this day.

As an announcer there is no one like him.  Not only does he have a mellifluous voice but his cadence is extremely rhythmical.  There is something musical, not only about the words he chooses, but how he delivers them. 

He has a way of working rhymes into his analysis.  Some people find this corny — I think it’s great.  

The Knicks are dishin’ and swishin; Ewing is dupin’ and hoopin. 

He has a great vocabulary and he uses words in interesting ways and his metaphors are vibrant.  You can tell that Frazier would have been a great jazz musician; he is improvising with words.   

It’s not just the rhymes, it’s the delivery and the timing.  When you listen to Clyde you feel as if you are stepping into a time machine and emerging in the early 1970s.  He’s got an aura of flash and cool about him.  It’s as if you can hear the mohair suit and the mutton chops!

“He [Raymond Felton] diligently works on denying his man the ball.  He’s become the catalyst for the team’s improved defense.  Then the other teams’ big guys have to try to orchestrate, but then they’re in disarray and turn the ball over.”

Recently I’ve stumbled upon a Clyde impersonater on twitter.  You can tell that this guy has immersed himself in Frazier-isms and his feed is a loving tribute.  Here are a few samples.  His name is ‘notwaltfrazier’ and if you are on twitter he is worth following.

Just saw the #Lakers-#Cavs score! This embarassin’ has little comparison’!
 
Came back from the bathroom to see Mike Breen messin’ with my chair. Not trustin’ his adjustin’!
 
Amar’e and Nor’easter. Partners in creatin’ random punctuatin’!
 
What’s with Portland turnin’ your knee into debris? Playin’ for the Blazers is riskin’ your meniscin’!
 
Carmelo’s lookin yellow with all this talkin’ and balkin’!
 
Got me thinkin’ about Willis in Game 7. His limpin’ was pimpin’!
 
Skippin’ breakfast got me stumblin’ and grumblin’! Appeasin’ with ham ‘n cheesin’!
 
Mike Breen is still mad I re-scheduled his wake-up call for 4am LOL. My prankin’ got him crankin’!
 
 Finally I direct-tweeted him this:
 
Keith:  Clyde, your tweets are delightable and recitable!
 
 And he responded
 
notwaltfrazier:  C for grammar, A for glamour!  

Aloha

I’m in Hawaii for Christmas.  Wasn’t there an Elvis song, Blue Hawaii?  Well that’s me this year; just me and The King.  I’m not going to waste your time describing what it’s like — you know the drill — tropical climate, the Leis, the Hulas, the Luaus, the one-armed, double-jointed stewardess.  Wait, did I go one too many?

A few points of interest are worth noting and then we’ll forget this ever happened.  After arriving at Kona Airport my sons and I drove one of the rental cars while my wife, ex-neighbor, and daughter took the other one.  Naturally, being guys, the  first thing we did was to check out the local radio stations.   First station,  reggae; second station, reggae; third station, smooth jazz; fourth station, reggae.  We even heard Christmas reggae music. 

“We wish you a reggae Christmas and a reggae New Year!” 

It’s a little too much, if you ask me.  There’s no jazz here, only of the smooth variety, and that’s not jazz, but Muzak to my ears. 

I don’t know how real sports fans live here.  Besides the fact that there are no pro local teams, with the earlier time zone the basketball and hockey games all begin at 2PM and are over with with by 9PM.  What do you do after that…listen to reggae? 

There is one perc, however.  This Sunday the Giants play a huge game in Green Bay against the Packers.  The game begins at 8AM Hawaiian time.  The way things are playing out I’ll be able to watch the entire game without disrupting my families’ plans.  I am da winnah.