In the midst of all this Redskin mascot controversy (which I think is well-founded and at the same time not going to change anything), I made a discovery about another DC team’s brand this week. Has anyone else noticed that the Washington Nationals’ logo (the curly W) looks an awful lot like the Walgreens logo? That’s right, the baseball team in the nation’s capital looks like it pilfered its logo from the nation’s largest retail pharmacy. And yes, Walgreens has been around since like 1901, so no, the Nationals didn't come around 1st.
Wait, what?
Now, I say this as someone who owns not 1, but 2 Washington Nationals curly W hats, and I probably sound like the guy fron Uni Watch at the moment, but the Nationals’ logo is kind of eh to begin with. There is a sort of elegance in its simplicity, but it lacks pop. The alternate unis that include the DC insignia on the hat and tops is kind of cool, but the base design would benefit from some edits. You have a good team with 2 of the brightest young stars in the game…that screams for the typical moment in a franchise’s history for a jersey change. Nationals marketing department, where you at?
Shouldn't a team boasting a young Bryce Harper have some unis with some pizazz?
And I get that there are only so many fonts and colors (and unless you’re the aforementioned Redskins, you can’t get away with not being red, white, and blue in Washington DC…the Wizards learned this the hard way), but to have the same red script W on your jersey as the place I pick up my antibiotics is a little lame. Come on, Nationals…you’re better than that.
With the NBA’s trade deadline looming tomorrow afternoon, don’t expect a Dwight Howard deal to get done. Howard is unhappy to the point that he might pass up the chance to make more money and play for one of the league’s premier franchises by not resigning with the Lakers at season’s end, but that doesn’t seem to have any bearing on LA’s plans, as they are still convinced (or are trying to convince themselves) that Howard is the superstar to bridge the gap between the Kobe era and whatever comes next.
The LeBron era? Just kidding, guys. Maybe...
My question is whether or not D12 is a superstar anymore to begin with. While I don’t think he will ever be skilled enough offensively to build an entire offense around, his size, strength, and athleticism are enough to make him a dominant rebounder, paint defender, and finisher around the rim…when happy, motivated, and healthy at least. Happy and motivated aren’t even really that big of issues. The Dwight Howard who hated his coach, who threw his teammates under the bus, and who seemed mostly disinterested his last 2 seasons in Orlando still averaged 21.9 points, 14.3 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game over that span.
This year his scoring and rebounding numbers are down, but it’s more than that. Howard is coming off major back surgery, and he doesn’t pass the eye test right now in the least bit. He looks slow, glued to the floor, and clumsy. (He already seemed clumsy at times throughout his career, but his current physical state exacerbates his clumsiness even more.) He used to be an intimidating physical presence, a chiseled body with pogo sticks for legs. In the dunk contests he participated in, he actually did dunks that I’d never seen before (a rare feat at this point). This year, I’m not sure if he scares anybody. To me, he looks like what I would have thought 39 year old Dwight Howard would look like.
For the last 5 years or so, Howard has been thought of as far and away the best center in the world. Based on the play of all the centers in the league this year alone, how many would you pick over Howard to play in a game right now? Tyson Chandler, Roy Hibbert, Brook Lopez, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, KG, Chris Bosh (both playing center right now), Tim Duncan (yes, he is a center for crying out loud), DeAndre Jordon, and Marc Gasol for sure. That’s 10 guys right there. Andre Drummond? JaVale McGee? Al Jefferson? DeMarcus Cousins? Those might be more of a stretch, but to say he hasn’t nearly been the most productive, effective, or intimidating player at the center position this year would be a huge understatement.
But that’s where Howard is at right now. To be fair, yes, he hates playing with Kobe. Yes, Mike D’Antoni’s system is not exactly attuned to his skill set. And no, he is far from healthy. But will he ever be the player he was ever again? I’m not sure he will be, and that’s also fair considering somebody (whether it’s the Lakers, Nets, or someone else) is going to sign him to a max contract this summer.
I know life had other ideas, but the Weekly NBA Power Rankings have hardly been weekly so far this season (December 12th, December 21st, and today). Since we are officially at the All-Star break, let’s try to seamlessly jump back into them though…maybe no one will even notice…maybe.
1. Miami Heat (36-14, previous ranking = 4)…We’ve spent much of the 1st half of the year thinking that the Heat are probably the favorites to win it all, but that they also may have been suffering from a slight championship hangover. Well, in the last couple of weeks they have gone from just turning it on when they wanted to being blisteringly hot (7 straight W’s). LeBron has been historically efficient over that span of time, but let’s not overlook Wade and Bosh, who have both shot way over 50% from the field during this stretch as well.
The King has been scary-good the past few weeks.
2. Oklahoma City Thunder (39-14, previous ranking = 3)…Count me as 1 of the people that doesn’t think James Harden’s departure hurt them that much, and last night’s home loss to Miami may have been somewhat of an aberration, but it just plain seems like the Thunder aren’t quite as good as the Heat again this year. And even with the 2nd best player in the world and the best team in the West, that’s probably going to still only be good enough for 2nd place in June.
3. San Antonio Spurs (42-12, previous ranking = unranked)…Even though San Antonio is more often than not close to the top of these rankings, I hardly ever have any superlatives to write about them. And I feel bad about that actually, I really do. But they are so boringly good (if that’s possible) that they aren’t much fun to write about. They have the league’s best record. They sometimes sit their big 3 all at once and have a starting 5 of Kawhi Leonard, Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter, Nando de Colo, and Danny Green, and they still beat good teams like the Bulls on the road with relative ease. So, there you go, Spurs. Don’t say I never said anything nice about you.
4. LA Clippers (39-17, previous ranking = 1)…The Clippers have had their great depth tested with CP3 and Griffin nursing injuries lately, but their returns as well as Chauncey Billups’ ability to play himself back into shape make this a scary roster. I’m still not sure if they can beat the Spurs or Thunder in a 7 game series. If you play smart, disciplined, and together, you can make them look pretty ho-hum. If you don’t do those things and they start to smell blood (like they did last night against the increasingly feeble looking Lakers), they can make you look really, really, really bad.
5. (Tie) New York Knicks (32-18, previous ranking = 2)…They have cooled slightly since their torrid start. That’s partly been due to injuries and partly because you can’t shoot 70% (not really, but it seemed like it) from the 3-point line forever. If Felton can stay healthy, they still match up well with Miami though, which at least gives them a (albeit slight) chance in the East.
The Knicks' money may be tied up in their frontcourt, but their fate may lie in the hands of the littlest guy on the floor.
5. (Tie) Memphis Grizzlies (33-18, previous ranking = 5)…Still very good. Still have Gasol and Randolph inside. Still play that grindhouse style of D. Still a team that nobody will want to play a 7 game series with this spring. But realistically, I’m not sure how big of a threat they are to OKC, Lob City, and San Antonio with all of their recent budget cuts. Since the end of last year, they have seen their instant-offense off-the-bench guy leave (Mayo), traded away 2 valuable role players for basically just cap relief in return (Ellington and Speights), and gotten rid of their only real wing athlete (Gay). Sad, but not sure what other options a small market team facing a huge luxury tax hit has.
One of the weird things about the day and age we live in is what happens when you suddenly go off the grid for a few weeks, and (just as suddenly) you are thrust right back into the grid. This is no more apparent than the world of Internet memes, where the ones that go most viral actually have the shortest shelf lives. Perfect recent examples are “Gangnam Style” and “grumpy cat," where they got so popular so fast that the originals as well as any recreations or parodies quickly began to bludgeon everyone with their own ubiquitous-ness. So, this week when I was thrown back into the world that I used to know, there were 2 memes that I caught a whiff of just as they were dying out. The 1st was “Do you even lift?” And the 2nd was “The Harlem Shake.”
“Do you even lift?” has apparently been a fledgling picture meme for a couple of months now, but it never really gained the notoriety of “grumpy cat” or “you mad, bro?” until this video hit YouTube…
I was just stunned how many of the guys’ 1st instinct was to punch the dude in the face. Is that really all it takes to get a guy that angry that fast? I guess the moral of the story is to not pick on a dude about the size of his muscles as he’s walking in or out of the gym…he’s too pumped up on his own testosterone and adrenaline to laugh-off some douche-prankster. (In contrast, the majority of the guys he approached who just seemed to be standing around somewhere and not necessarily by the gym had much calmer reactions.) Just a weirdly funny social experiment...
“The Harlem Shake” was a little more confusing for me (and therefore took a little more research, as you could tell by my YouTube history this morning). The basic premise is that the song starts, 1 person starts to dance (usually with a motorcycle helmet or mask on) while everyone else in the background is going about their business. Then, the beat drops, and insanity ensues. When we get to around the 30 second mark of the song, the clips all end.
That's pretty much it. So stupid and simple, yet hypnotizing none of the less. I still have so many questions…how did this start? Who came up with the idea? What made the 1st person that saw the 1st video of it say, “I want to do my own version of that?” Like so many things that go viral, the question of why is almost impossible to answer, but when it happens, it happens, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it to keep it from spreading. And do the Harlem Shake…
If I had any actual readers, they might have thought this blog was getting the light turned out on it after a few weeks of inactivity. Truth is that the past 2 weeks have been the toughest 2 weeks of my life. But it looks like the B-Court All-Star household may have been through the worst of it, and greener pastures are waiting. So, I’ll make my triumphant return with, of all things, a mini-parody of the classic Christmas poem “Twas the Night before Christmas.” Why? Because as much as going into all the gory details would be somewhat cleansing, it would be just too painful too. And why else? Because f*** everything, that’s why!
Zero!
Twas the night of February 12th, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
The baby had eaten, Krissy got her meds
No more sleeping on plastic chairs and hospital beds
So, join with us in a celebratory dance
And a welcome home party from a few friendly ants
Their long adventure was over from which they had come
Krissy, Christopher, and Jacob were finally home
