I thought about doing a Super Bowl recap blog, but the result of the game kind of was what it was…while the finish was entertaining, it wasn’t a particularly well played game by either team. The matchup and the resulting outcome pretty much confirmed what we already knew. The Steelers (much like the Spurs in the NBA, in my opinion) will always be that solidly built team, and as long as they have Big Ben and a stingy D they will contend for championships. The Packers finally proved they were the team everyone thought they could be for the last two years. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if these two teams met up in a Super Bowl rematch in the not too distant future. To me, the coolest thing that came out of Super Bowl Sunday was one particular commercial. My Super Bowl viewing experience was kind of odd this year. Normally on Super Bowl Sunday, I can be found plopped down on the couch for seemingly the entire day, but this year Krissy and I were helping my parents do some stuff around their house during the afternoon. This resulted in us using a technological marvel known as a DVR to watch the game. Anyway, when you DVR anything, the natural tendency is to just fast forward through all the commercials, but during the Super Bowl the ads are sometimes as entertaining as the game itself. With that being said, Super Bowl commercials have been severely lacking the past few years, so I sped through 95% of them. I would occasionally hit play when I saw an E-Trade Baby ad or an ad with a chimp in a suit driving a car to work, but for the most part I fast forwarded through everything.
During one particular timeout, a car ad seemed to be running. I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to it, but as I was fast forwarding I noticed what I thought was Eminem towards the end of the ad. Being the huge Em fan that I am, I immediately rewinded to the beginning of the commercial to watch it in full. I have to say that as far as TV commercials go, it was brilliant. There was no slapstick comedy in it (like some guy getting hit in the balls or Betty White getting tackled into a pool of mud), no grandiose or expensive looking CGI, and no self-important tagline where the ad-makers think they are a lot more clever than they really are. The camera brings you through what looks like authentic Detroit. The narrator tells you of the struggles and perseverance of the city, and Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” starts to quietly build in the background. The narrator says something to the effect of, “This isn’t New York City, the Windy City, and it’s definitely not the Emerald City.” The camera cuts to Eminem getting out of a Chrysler, and stepping into Detroit’s world famous Fox Theatre where a Gospel choir continues to lead into the instrumental bridge of the song, and Eminem turns to the camera and says, “This is the Motor City, and this is what we do.” The commercial then ends with the words “Imported from Detroit” across the screen…now, I am already biased to liking anything involving Eminem, but it was just very cool. I am not from Detroit, nor do I have any affiliation with the city, but it was hard not to feel kind of proud after watching that. Detroit is as all-American and as blue-collar as any city in the country, and for me at least I couldn’t help feeling a little patriotism start to swell up. For a moment, it caused me to forget any notion I had of buying a Toyota, BMW, or Suburu…which is what makes the ad so smart and effective in the first place. I’m not saying I still don’t want to buy a Tacoma, but the ad definitely appeals to my wanting to buy a domestic vehicle when the time comes. Anyway, check out the Chrysler spot below and decide what you think for yourself.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Milestones
Couple of quick personal lifting-related notes for this post…
1st, I finally broke the 80 lb. barrier for dumbbell shoulder presses. For months, I hadn’t been able to move up past the 75’s. I always felt that if I could actually successfully get them above my head, I could get a good number of reps in with the 80’s, and it turns out my “feeling” was right. (I was able to rep them 9 times for 1 set.) Anyway, I don’t think anyone gets that hyped over shoulder milestones…it’s not like reaching a new one rep max when you’re benching or squatting or dead-lifting, but it was long-awaited, and I feel like my shoulder strength at least somewhat makes up for my (at times) disappointing chest strength.
2nd, I randomly weighed myself the other night. It was the 1st time I had weighed myself since the beginning of summer I believe, and I’m not sure exactly what brought this idea on. I believe it was just the curiosity of not having weighed myself in several months and seeing if my body was actually still changing as a result of lifting and whatnot. I have definitely gotten stronger in the gym, but I don’t take pictures of myself or measure myself in any other way really, so I didn’t really have a good idea of what I would weigh. Also, when I look in the mirror I don’t look drastically different (fatter or more muscular), and it’s not like I have had to buy all new clothes that fit either. Anyway, I figured I would weigh pretty much the same (between 190-195), but to my surprise I weighed-in at 201.5! Now, this was after dinner on a day that Krissy and I took off from the gym, but I have never weighed that much in my life. I weighed myself again the next morning before breakfast to get a more accurate measurement, and I weighed 198 lb., which is still my heaviest weight to date. With everything I said before regarding some small gains in strength and no noticeable difference in appearance, I guess this means that I have just gradually put on a few pounds of muscle. Still, anytime my weight goes up like that I do get a little nervous, so maybe I will just monitor it a little more closely in the coming weeks just to make sure I’m not stuffing my face or slacking on my cardio too much.
1st, I finally broke the 80 lb. barrier for dumbbell shoulder presses. For months, I hadn’t been able to move up past the 75’s. I always felt that if I could actually successfully get them above my head, I could get a good number of reps in with the 80’s, and it turns out my “feeling” was right. (I was able to rep them 9 times for 1 set.) Anyway, I don’t think anyone gets that hyped over shoulder milestones…it’s not like reaching a new one rep max when you’re benching or squatting or dead-lifting, but it was long-awaited, and I feel like my shoulder strength at least somewhat makes up for my (at times) disappointing chest strength.
2nd, I randomly weighed myself the other night. It was the 1st time I had weighed myself since the beginning of summer I believe, and I’m not sure exactly what brought this idea on. I believe it was just the curiosity of not having weighed myself in several months and seeing if my body was actually still changing as a result of lifting and whatnot. I have definitely gotten stronger in the gym, but I don’t take pictures of myself or measure myself in any other way really, so I didn’t really have a good idea of what I would weigh. Also, when I look in the mirror I don’t look drastically different (fatter or more muscular), and it’s not like I have had to buy all new clothes that fit either. Anyway, I figured I would weigh pretty much the same (between 190-195), but to my surprise I weighed-in at 201.5! Now, this was after dinner on a day that Krissy and I took off from the gym, but I have never weighed that much in my life. I weighed myself again the next morning before breakfast to get a more accurate measurement, and I weighed 198 lb., which is still my heaviest weight to date. With everything I said before regarding some small gains in strength and no noticeable difference in appearance, I guess this means that I have just gradually put on a few pounds of muscle. Still, anytime my weight goes up like that I do get a little nervous, so maybe I will just monitor it a little more closely in the coming weeks just to make sure I’m not stuffing my face or slacking on my cardio too much.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Just Curious
This January marked the three year anniversary of when I first began working at my current job. Three years seems like a long time when you say it out loud or type the actual words out. That’s only one year less than I spent in high school and a year and half less than it took me to graduate from college (both of which seemed endless at the time). But truthfully, these past three years have flown by. In comparison to those other two time periods I just mentioned, the three years since I graduated from college have seemed like a nanosecond. Maybe that has to do with the passing of certain life events such as getting engaged and getting married…I don’t think it has had as much to do with my work itself (which is what this post is really about).
I have been telling myself for the past six months that I was going to start looking for another job. This wasn’t because I hated my job or anything, but more because I just wanted to see what else was out there. Finally, this past month I posted my resume on a couple of job websites. I told myself I still wasn’t “actively” looking for another job, just doing my due diligence in the employee world. Well, here I am only a few weeks later, and I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I didn’t “just want to see what else was out there.” The nature of the work that I do is very cyclical in terms of how heavy the workload is at any given time. At times, you have a lot of down time, but at other times you may have multiple projects occurring simultaneously, and you may find yourself struggling just to keep your head above water…however, it seems as if I have been in a “down” cycle for almost a year now, and I can see myself going from a “just looking” attitude to a “get me out of here” attitude very quickly, as I have gone from passively looking to actively searching within only a matter of weeks.
I read a thing the other day that said something to the effect of “everyone’s goal should be to make as much money as possible while doing as little actual work as possible.” Obviously, that statement is only meant half-jokingly, but there is some truth to it. To that effect, maybe I should just keep quiet and stay the course for the time being. With everything I’ve said up to this point, it’s tough for me to say anything negative about my job. I’ve learned a tremendous amount, I’ve worked on some really interesting projects, and I’ve been treated really well by my employer. I mean, is it really killing me to sit at a desk and get paid to be bored for eight or nine hours a day? Probably not, and even if I’m never quite as consistently busy as I would like to be, it’s not like I’m never going to get another interesting project to work on here, but there have been too many days lately where if Krissy were to ask me what I did at work my answer would basically be, “I don’t really know.” I think everyone is bound to have days like that once in awhile, but it seems like the days where I actually feel like I accomplished something at work are sandwiched between way too many days where I feel like I accomplished nothing at all.
Like I said, maybe there is something to that above quote. Maybe we as humans are naturally inclined to do as little work as possible. I think that’s mostly true…I mean, most modern advances in technology are designed with the intent of allowing us to sit on our cans as much as possible. But without waxing too philosophically here, I also think humans are naturally inclined to strive to achieve some type of purpose. For example, Krissy works for the state as a social worker. I don’t want to get into too many specifics, but it’s a hard job. She constantly has to deal with people (half of which seem to be clinically insane and the other half completely unhelpful), she usually logs several hours a day in the car driving from place to place, she is often placed in semi-dangerous situations with people who aren’t always the most stable, and she always has a ton of nonsensical paperwork to fill out. On top of all of that, she isn’t paid half as much as she deserves (in my very biased opinion of course)…and yet there are days where I can see the pride she has in herself for the good she was able to do for someone through her work. On those days, I would be lying if I said I didn’t envy her.
I have been telling myself for the past six months that I was going to start looking for another job. This wasn’t because I hated my job or anything, but more because I just wanted to see what else was out there. Finally, this past month I posted my resume on a couple of job websites. I told myself I still wasn’t “actively” looking for another job, just doing my due diligence in the employee world. Well, here I am only a few weeks later, and I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I didn’t “just want to see what else was out there.” The nature of the work that I do is very cyclical in terms of how heavy the workload is at any given time. At times, you have a lot of down time, but at other times you may have multiple projects occurring simultaneously, and you may find yourself struggling just to keep your head above water…however, it seems as if I have been in a “down” cycle for almost a year now, and I can see myself going from a “just looking” attitude to a “get me out of here” attitude very quickly, as I have gone from passively looking to actively searching within only a matter of weeks.
I read a thing the other day that said something to the effect of “everyone’s goal should be to make as much money as possible while doing as little actual work as possible.” Obviously, that statement is only meant half-jokingly, but there is some truth to it. To that effect, maybe I should just keep quiet and stay the course for the time being. With everything I’ve said up to this point, it’s tough for me to say anything negative about my job. I’ve learned a tremendous amount, I’ve worked on some really interesting projects, and I’ve been treated really well by my employer. I mean, is it really killing me to sit at a desk and get paid to be bored for eight or nine hours a day? Probably not, and even if I’m never quite as consistently busy as I would like to be, it’s not like I’m never going to get another interesting project to work on here, but there have been too many days lately where if Krissy were to ask me what I did at work my answer would basically be, “I don’t really know.” I think everyone is bound to have days like that once in awhile, but it seems like the days where I actually feel like I accomplished something at work are sandwiched between way too many days where I feel like I accomplished nothing at all.
Like I said, maybe there is something to that above quote. Maybe we as humans are naturally inclined to do as little work as possible. I think that’s mostly true…I mean, most modern advances in technology are designed with the intent of allowing us to sit on our cans as much as possible. But without waxing too philosophically here, I also think humans are naturally inclined to strive to achieve some type of purpose. For example, Krissy works for the state as a social worker. I don’t want to get into too many specifics, but it’s a hard job. She constantly has to deal with people (half of which seem to be clinically insane and the other half completely unhelpful), she usually logs several hours a day in the car driving from place to place, she is often placed in semi-dangerous situations with people who aren’t always the most stable, and she always has a ton of nonsensical paperwork to fill out. On top of all of that, she isn’t paid half as much as she deserves (in my very biased opinion of course)…and yet there are days where I can see the pride she has in herself for the good she was able to do for someone through her work. On those days, I would be lying if I said I didn’t envy her.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Melo To LA? Has A Nice Ring To It
It’s been over a week since I’ve done a post where I mentioned Blake Griffin…so of course, this post has to do (partially at least) with none other than Blake Griffin. As free agency was approaching last summer, Bill Simmons wrote a column where he rated all the possible destinations for LeBron to land. While he picked New York, Miami, Chicago, and Cleveland as the most likely choices, Simmons theorized that the best place for him to go (all things considered) would be the Clippers…really, the Clippers? He would have to somehow shake off the stink of an owner and a franchise that had been the laughingstock of the league for the previous three decades, but Simmons pointed out that there was a lot of potential upside to going there. He would be in a big market, he would be playing with a young talented nucleus that included Griffin and Eric Gordon, and he would undoubtedly be the lead dog on the team. Now, this theory had almost no chance of becoming a reality. First, there was that thing about being a perpetual loser of a franchise for thirty years. Second, the owner of the Clips is by all accounts a pretty big scumbag…this might not deter everyone from signing with the Clippers, but it definitely will keep some away. Third, everyone thought that Griffin and Gordon had the potential to be great, but no one knew for sure if Blake was going to get healthy and if Gordon would finally put it all together. Fast forward a few months (incidentally, the rising Clippers just ended the Heat’s 13 game road winning streak last night): Griffin is a beast, and Gordon has shown that last summer’s Team USA experience really pushed him to be a better player.
What does this have to do with this year? Well, anyone that has been following the NBA this year knows about the perpetual melodrama – get it, Melo-drama….damn, that’s funny – that has been Carmelo Anthony’s eventual exodus out of Denver and to New York or New Jersey. Basically, Melo wants to be a Knick, and Denver wants to trade him before the season’s over so they can get something back for him rather than be left empty-handed when Melo leaves via free agency this summer. Anthony would also prefer to do a sign-and-trade because he wouldn’t get nearly as much money if he simply signed in New York this summer (let’s not even mention the collective bargaining issue…oops, I just did). However, New York doesn’t really have all the pieces that Denver is interested in to make a trade. The Nets, on the other hand, do. Ending up with the Knicks through a trade isn’t impossible, but it’s likely going to have to involve other franchises as well, which makes things more complicated. As it stands right now, it appears that potential trade scenarios that would ship Melo to the Nets are in the works, but Anthony seems to be blocking them. So, the question is does Anthony hold out for the Knicks, or does he decide that New Jersey is close enough and accept a trade there. Coincidentally in his latest column, Simmons (who was the first person I saw say, “What about the Clippers?” concerning LeBron last summer) basically wrote, “What about the Clippers?” regarding Melo’s eventually landing spot as well. His arguments for Melo going to LA are similar to his arguments for LeBron to have gone there last summer. Just like last year, this idea just had never occurred to me. For one, it just seemed like a foregone conclusion that Melo was heading east. Also, even though they boast my favorite current player in the league, I guess the Clippers are still an afterthought even to me. For full disclosure’s sake, I should note that even though Simmons is a diehard Celtics fan he is a Clippers season ticket holder, so it’s easy to see why he would like to see Anthony suit-up in home white with red and blue trim next season…still I have to admit that just as the what if LeBron went to the Clippers scenario was the most fun to think about last year, the what if Melo went to the Clippers scenario is the most intriguing possibility here as well. (On a sidenote, in this last column Simmons called Griffin “the most meaningful in-the-air player since Shawn Kemp.” No wonder he’s my favorite individual to watch play since the Reignman himself.)
Anyway, this Melo to the Clips stuff is nothing more than pie in the sky right now. Other than Simmons, I haven’t heard a peep about this even being a possibility to this point. There could always be something in the works that we don’t know about, but there has been no mention of LA even being on Carmelo’s radar. Still, it would be fun to have a team that was potentially good enough to unseat the Lakers as the best team in their own town. If the Clippers can keep their core of young guys together though, they might actually be poised to take over the role of best young up-and-coming team in the league from the Thunder within the next year or two without having to deal for a megastar like Anthony. They have Griffin, Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Baron Davis, Eric Bledsoe, Al-Farouq Aminu, Chris Kaman (whose expiring contract could be used in another trade), and I believe they have not one but two first round draft picks again next year. They have a lot of pieces (and trade chips) in place, and while it’s always fun to make a splashy trade and/or signing, it might be in their best interest just to stand pat and continue to stockpile young talent the old-fashioned way. It’s almost impossible to believe, but with a few more of the right kind of moves we might be talking about the Clippers as the model franchise in a year or two in terms of how to build a roster from scratch.
What does this have to do with this year? Well, anyone that has been following the NBA this year knows about the perpetual melodrama – get it, Melo-drama….damn, that’s funny – that has been Carmelo Anthony’s eventual exodus out of Denver and to New York or New Jersey. Basically, Melo wants to be a Knick, and Denver wants to trade him before the season’s over so they can get something back for him rather than be left empty-handed when Melo leaves via free agency this summer. Anthony would also prefer to do a sign-and-trade because he wouldn’t get nearly as much money if he simply signed in New York this summer (let’s not even mention the collective bargaining issue…oops, I just did). However, New York doesn’t really have all the pieces that Denver is interested in to make a trade. The Nets, on the other hand, do. Ending up with the Knicks through a trade isn’t impossible, but it’s likely going to have to involve other franchises as well, which makes things more complicated. As it stands right now, it appears that potential trade scenarios that would ship Melo to the Nets are in the works, but Anthony seems to be blocking them. So, the question is does Anthony hold out for the Knicks, or does he decide that New Jersey is close enough and accept a trade there. Coincidentally in his latest column, Simmons (who was the first person I saw say, “What about the Clippers?” concerning LeBron last summer) basically wrote, “What about the Clippers?” regarding Melo’s eventually landing spot as well. His arguments for Melo going to LA are similar to his arguments for LeBron to have gone there last summer. Just like last year, this idea just had never occurred to me. For one, it just seemed like a foregone conclusion that Melo was heading east. Also, even though they boast my favorite current player in the league, I guess the Clippers are still an afterthought even to me. For full disclosure’s sake, I should note that even though Simmons is a diehard Celtics fan he is a Clippers season ticket holder, so it’s easy to see why he would like to see Anthony suit-up in home white with red and blue trim next season…still I have to admit that just as the what if LeBron went to the Clippers scenario was the most fun to think about last year, the what if Melo went to the Clippers scenario is the most intriguing possibility here as well. (On a sidenote, in this last column Simmons called Griffin “the most meaningful in-the-air player since Shawn Kemp.” No wonder he’s my favorite individual to watch play since the Reignman himself.)
Anyway, this Melo to the Clips stuff is nothing more than pie in the sky right now. Other than Simmons, I haven’t heard a peep about this even being a possibility to this point. There could always be something in the works that we don’t know about, but there has been no mention of LA even being on Carmelo’s radar. Still, it would be fun to have a team that was potentially good enough to unseat the Lakers as the best team in their own town. If the Clippers can keep their core of young guys together though, they might actually be poised to take over the role of best young up-and-coming team in the league from the Thunder within the next year or two without having to deal for a megastar like Anthony. They have Griffin, Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Baron Davis, Eric Bledsoe, Al-Farouq Aminu, Chris Kaman (whose expiring contract could be used in another trade), and I believe they have not one but two first round draft picks again next year. They have a lot of pieces (and trade chips) in place, and while it’s always fun to make a splashy trade and/or signing, it might be in their best interest just to stand pat and continue to stockpile young talent the old-fashioned way. It’s almost impossible to believe, but with a few more of the right kind of moves we might be talking about the Clippers as the model franchise in a year or two in terms of how to build a roster from scratch.
Monday, January 10, 2011
We Are All Witnesses
This thought might seem like it was stolen or pieced together from the thoughts of people much smarter than me who have much greater outlets to voice their opinions, but I think anyone with a sense of the sports world as we know it that saw the end of last night’s Portland-Miami game had a similar reaction to mine. LeBron’s previous ad campaign while he was in Cleveland included the one-liner, “We are all witnesses.” Well, last night we witnessed the completion of LeBron’s character transformation from beloved superstar to hated villain. After waking up from a little pre-bedtime nap, Krissy went to bed. I told her I wouldn’t be far behind, but I wanted to load the dishwasher first. I turned the channel to NBA TV, which was in the middle of a live look-in to the Heat-Trailblazers game. As a result, a chore that should have taken all of 2 minutes took 15 or 20.
Facing a hostile Portland crowd and down by 7 with only a few minutes to go in the 4th quarter, James almost singlehandedly brought the Heat back to force overtime. James continued to take over the game in extra time, hitting a deep, dagger 3-pointer from the right wing that all but ended the game. I forget how much time was exactly left following the play, but Portland called a timeout to try to come up with some type of last-ditch desperation strategy. As James, Wade, Bosh, and the other 2 Miami players de jour strode to the bench the Portland crowd serenaded the Heat with some light booing. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and in that situation any good crowd would have done the same thing. I’m not even sure that half of the boos weren’t directed at the overall situation (the home crowd seeing their team’s chances of winning that particular game being extinguished) rather than James and the rest of the Heat themselves…but James took the opportunity – seemed to relish in it even – to rub it in the Portland fans’ faces a little more. As he walked towards the bench, James raised his hands and motioned to the crowd as if to say, “Keep the boos coming,” and the booing continued to get a little louder. He took a few extra steps to the baseline adjacent to the Heat bench, and continued to motion in the same way to the crowd. By the time he actually got the bench, the derisive cheers had continued to swell. It was a different kind of booing than what occurred when the Heat played in Cleveland for the first time this year. Those boos were the boos of hatred, of a fan base whose heart had been ripped out several months earlier by James. It was personal. These boos in Portland were reminiscent of what a “bad guy” would receive at a WWE event. To steal a few wrestling terms, James’ turn from a face to a heel was finished. The transformation was complete.
One of the things that was so off-putting about the Heat earlier in the year – in addition to the fact that we had to subject ourselves to watching them play so lousy – was that they seemed to have no self-awareness at all. Sure, they probably figured the crowds in Cleveland, Toronto, New York, and Boston would be rough on them, but I don’t think they anticipated how much everyone in the league outside of Miami would hate them. Now, not only do they seem to actually get it, but they seem to be thriving off of it…as evidenced by the fact that last night marked their 13th straight road win. Out of the Big 3, the change is most evident in LeBron. After all, he was the most hated to begin with, and he seemed to be the most shaken by all of the negativity directed towards him during games. See, this was already Wade’s team by the time James and Bosh arrived, and while some hate has been directed his way he has mostly only been guilty by association in the public eye. Bosh, who looked lost earlier in the year (but seems to have found his niche on the court), will always be the 3rd banana out of the Big 3, and as a result any hate directed towards him will continue to be tertiary. LeBron is the one that lost the most in the court of public appeal as a result of the Big 3 fallout. He is, after all, the self-appointed Chosen One, the star of the misguided “The Decision” special on ESPN, and the one that took his talents to South Beach.
Through the first 20 games of the season, LeBron seemed to shrink at times on the court. Now, it seems like he is everywhere at once, just as he was in years past. He seems to play better on the road, where the booing appears to fuel him. Not only that, but James seems to finally be embracing this new role. You don’t have to be an actor to know that the villainous roles have to be most fun ones to play, and LeBron has discovered that. What makes this fun for us [fans] is that LeBron, if he plays this right, is on the verge of becoming possibly the biggest sports villain ever! Imagine Bill Laimbeer, only if Bill Laimbeer was the most physically gifted player in the whole sport. I will actually be disappointed if LeBron tries to fight wearing the black cowboy hat of the sports world, and instead eventually tries to market his image the way that he did in Cleveland. In this age of Twitter and AAU teams, everyone knows each other and likes each other just a little bit too much…we need a quality sports heel for old time’s sake. Hopefully, we can look back at this and say that this was the night we were all witnesses…to LeBron doing the equivalent of joining the sports world’s nWo.
Facing a hostile Portland crowd and down by 7 with only a few minutes to go in the 4th quarter, James almost singlehandedly brought the Heat back to force overtime. James continued to take over the game in extra time, hitting a deep, dagger 3-pointer from the right wing that all but ended the game. I forget how much time was exactly left following the play, but Portland called a timeout to try to come up with some type of last-ditch desperation strategy. As James, Wade, Bosh, and the other 2 Miami players de jour strode to the bench the Portland crowd serenaded the Heat with some light booing. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and in that situation any good crowd would have done the same thing. I’m not even sure that half of the boos weren’t directed at the overall situation (the home crowd seeing their team’s chances of winning that particular game being extinguished) rather than James and the rest of the Heat themselves…but James took the opportunity – seemed to relish in it even – to rub it in the Portland fans’ faces a little more. As he walked towards the bench, James raised his hands and motioned to the crowd as if to say, “Keep the boos coming,” and the booing continued to get a little louder. He took a few extra steps to the baseline adjacent to the Heat bench, and continued to motion in the same way to the crowd. By the time he actually got the bench, the derisive cheers had continued to swell. It was a different kind of booing than what occurred when the Heat played in Cleveland for the first time this year. Those boos were the boos of hatred, of a fan base whose heart had been ripped out several months earlier by James. It was personal. These boos in Portland were reminiscent of what a “bad guy” would receive at a WWE event. To steal a few wrestling terms, James’ turn from a face to a heel was finished. The transformation was complete.
One of the things that was so off-putting about the Heat earlier in the year – in addition to the fact that we had to subject ourselves to watching them play so lousy – was that they seemed to have no self-awareness at all. Sure, they probably figured the crowds in Cleveland, Toronto, New York, and Boston would be rough on them, but I don’t think they anticipated how much everyone in the league outside of Miami would hate them. Now, not only do they seem to actually get it, but they seem to be thriving off of it…as evidenced by the fact that last night marked their 13th straight road win. Out of the Big 3, the change is most evident in LeBron. After all, he was the most hated to begin with, and he seemed to be the most shaken by all of the negativity directed towards him during games. See, this was already Wade’s team by the time James and Bosh arrived, and while some hate has been directed his way he has mostly only been guilty by association in the public eye. Bosh, who looked lost earlier in the year (but seems to have found his niche on the court), will always be the 3rd banana out of the Big 3, and as a result any hate directed towards him will continue to be tertiary. LeBron is the one that lost the most in the court of public appeal as a result of the Big 3 fallout. He is, after all, the self-appointed Chosen One, the star of the misguided “The Decision” special on ESPN, and the one that took his talents to South Beach.
Through the first 20 games of the season, LeBron seemed to shrink at times on the court. Now, it seems like he is everywhere at once, just as he was in years past. He seems to play better on the road, where the booing appears to fuel him. Not only that, but James seems to finally be embracing this new role. You don’t have to be an actor to know that the villainous roles have to be most fun ones to play, and LeBron has discovered that. What makes this fun for us [fans] is that LeBron, if he plays this right, is on the verge of becoming possibly the biggest sports villain ever! Imagine Bill Laimbeer, only if Bill Laimbeer was the most physically gifted player in the whole sport. I will actually be disappointed if LeBron tries to fight wearing the black cowboy hat of the sports world, and instead eventually tries to market his image the way that he did in Cleveland. In this age of Twitter and AAU teams, everyone knows each other and likes each other just a little bit too much…we need a quality sports heel for old time’s sake. Hopefully, we can look back at this and say that this was the night we were all witnesses…to LeBron doing the equivalent of joining the sports world’s nWo.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
New Year, Talking About The Same Ol' Stuff
Starting off 2011 with a fresh new post! In my last entry of 2010, I said something to the effect of, “I could post a Blake Griffin highlight of the day after each Clippers game for the rest of the season if I wanted to.” It was funny at the time because I think I had written about 10 blog entries to that point, and I had mentioned Griffin in at least 3 or 4 or them. At the end of that particular post I made mention of the fact that I don’t buy myself jerseys anymore, but if I did I would definitely buy a Blake jersey…I didn’t know that those words would prove to be prophetic, as one of the coolest Christmas gifts I got this year was from Krissy’s brother Nick, and it just so happened to be a home Blake Griffin Clippers jersey. Big ups to Nick for the jersey…I only hope that the Chris Postell jersey jinx doesn’t continue. If Blake comes down on someone’s foot and sprains an ankle in his next game, you’ll know why!
The 2nd part of this post is the wrap-up of my fantasy football team. The last time I did a fantasy update on here, my team was 7-4. That was good enough for 1st place in my division and 2nd place in the league overall. I finished up the season with 3 more wins to go 10-4, which gave me 6 consecutive wins to end the regular season. This made me the outright regular season champ and the overall #1 seed for the playoffs…both firsts for me, but being the pessimist that I am I also figured this meant certain doom and devastation for my team. The rational side of me kept telling myself that this notion of impending disaster was pure lunacy. My team was a juggernaut. I only had the best regular season record by a half a game, but I easily had the highest scoring team for the whole year, and I also somehow managed to have the least total points scored against my team for the whole season as well. To me, this means that I not only had the strongest team in the league but the luckiest team in terms of matchups from week to week as well. With that combination, it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibilities for me to have gone 12-2 or 13-1…still, my pessimistic intuition proved to be pretty on point. In the 1st round, I very nearly lost to Pat’s 8th seeded team. In fact, my point total for the week was low enough that my team would have been sent packing against any of the other 6 playoff teams if I had happened to be matched up with them. I guess it pays to be the #1 seed after all. Anyway, after escaping the 1st round I ended up beating Krissy’s team (who finished 4th in the regular season and 3rd in the playoffs…not too shabby) and Allen’s team to take the postseason league title as well. It was a pretty remarkable run considering that I was the regular season champ, the postseason champ, and finished the year on a 9 game win streak. You never know…I might not have a team that does any 1 of those 3 things ever again (much less at the same time). The only other fantasy league I ever won was a league where my team was the lowest seeded team in the playoffs, and this year my #1 seeded team was on the verge of being KO-ed this as well. The fact is that the best teams in fantasy don’t always win (which was one of the roots of my pessimistic outlook in the first place).
Last year when the fantasy football season was over and done with I went back and analyzed my picks and some of my other moves. There were a lot of draft picks where I wished I had picked someone else in retrospect…it was tough to do that with this year’s team, but my team could have actually been better if it hadn’t been for some poor waiver wire decisions though. It’s pretty tough to argue against taking Andre Johnson in the 1st round. He missed the last 2 games of the season due to injury and 3 overall, and that’s not the best time for your stud wide receiver to go down, but I was able to plug the holes. Even with he missed games and nagging ankle injury that plagued him since week 2, he was good enough to be the 8th rated wide receiver. My 2nd round pick, Pierre Thomas, was pretty much a bust due to injury, but without knowing that I’m not sure who I else I would’ve picked. Greg Jennings was my 3rd pick, and he started off slow, but finished as the 4th best receiver in the league. In the 4th round, I took Dwayne Bowe, who finished as the 2nd rated receiver. I could have potentially had the greatest receiver corps in the history of fantasy football (I later picked up Stevie Johnson as a free agent, who finished as the 10th best fantasy receiver), but Bowe started off so slow that I dropped him after the 4th or 5th week of the season…shame on me. I took Matt Forte in the 5th round. Forte had been overrated the year before (was rated as like the 4th or 5th best player overall in preseason fantasy rankings in 2009). After a subpar season, he was consequently underrated going into this year, and he finished as the 11th best running back and 21st ranked player overall this season. In the 6th round, I picked Pierre Garcon, who I prematurely dropped after a slow start to the season as well. Garcon finished the year as a top 40 receiver, but he was probably a top 25 wideout for the 2nd half of the year. I was pretty strong at receiver anyway, but he would have been a nice spot starter in my flex position, and that would have kept him out of someone else’s lineup also.
Having basically wasted half of my top 6 picks should have crushed my fantasy hopes for this year right off the bat, but the late part of the draft is where my bread was buttered. I took Joe Flacco in the 7th round. Flacco was solid for me, but not spectacular…however, I picked up Ben Roethlisberger as a free agent, and Flacco and Roethlisberger gave me a pretty good quarterback platoon. I picked Chris Cooley in the 8th round. By then, most of the more highly rated tight ends were off the board, but Cooley finished the year as the 7th rated fantasy tight end, so I got pretty good value for him in that spot.
The 9th round is where I hit the jackpot. Often times, fantasy leagues are won and lost because of one player. Several years ago, millions of fantasy football teams went in the toilet when Ronnie Brown blew his knee out like in week 7 or the season. Last year, millions of leagues were won or lost depending on who was able to get to their computer and pick Cedric Benson off of the waiver wire first. Peyton Hillis was a good example of that type of free agent pickup this year. Arian Foster was the one player that swung leagues more than anyone else this season though, and I had the good fortune of drafting him. To be honest, I had my eye on Foster throughout the preseason leading up to our fantasy draft. I thought he was a potential sleeper, and he would be worth a mid-round pick. Having said that, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I knew how good he was actually going to be. In our league, Foster was projected to go in the 7th or 8th round I believe. I had him in my draft queue for awhile, but no one else seemed willing to take him at that point. I think he was the highest rated remaining player in the draft for a good round or so, and for whatever reason (either people had more pressing needs or just had no idea who he was) more lowly rated players kept getting picked before him. I was trying to hold off on picking him myself because I had my eye on some other guys as well, but in the 9th round I finally pulled the trigger. From talking to other people in the league, it was a good thing I picked him then because he wouldn’t have lasted another whole round. Simply put, Foster was a beast. He finished the year as the overall #1 rated fantasy player. Fittingly, he carried my team in the championship round with nearly 200 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns that week. I was also proud of my 10th round pick, Fred Jackson. Jackson was in a 3-way backfield battle when the season began, but eventually regained his starting position. He finished the year as a top 25 fantasy back. Still, everything paled in comparison to drafting Foster. Regardless of how shrewd or not so shrewd some of my other moves were, he pretty much was the difference between winning the league and having a mediocre team that got bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs. The rest of my later draft picks were inconsequential, and this season once again proved that in fantasy sports it’s better to be lucky than good.
The 2nd part of this post is the wrap-up of my fantasy football team. The last time I did a fantasy update on here, my team was 7-4. That was good enough for 1st place in my division and 2nd place in the league overall. I finished up the season with 3 more wins to go 10-4, which gave me 6 consecutive wins to end the regular season. This made me the outright regular season champ and the overall #1 seed for the playoffs…both firsts for me, but being the pessimist that I am I also figured this meant certain doom and devastation for my team. The rational side of me kept telling myself that this notion of impending disaster was pure lunacy. My team was a juggernaut. I only had the best regular season record by a half a game, but I easily had the highest scoring team for the whole year, and I also somehow managed to have the least total points scored against my team for the whole season as well. To me, this means that I not only had the strongest team in the league but the luckiest team in terms of matchups from week to week as well. With that combination, it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibilities for me to have gone 12-2 or 13-1…still, my pessimistic intuition proved to be pretty on point. In the 1st round, I very nearly lost to Pat’s 8th seeded team. In fact, my point total for the week was low enough that my team would have been sent packing against any of the other 6 playoff teams if I had happened to be matched up with them. I guess it pays to be the #1 seed after all. Anyway, after escaping the 1st round I ended up beating Krissy’s team (who finished 4th in the regular season and 3rd in the playoffs…not too shabby) and Allen’s team to take the postseason league title as well. It was a pretty remarkable run considering that I was the regular season champ, the postseason champ, and finished the year on a 9 game win streak. You never know…I might not have a team that does any 1 of those 3 things ever again (much less at the same time). The only other fantasy league I ever won was a league where my team was the lowest seeded team in the playoffs, and this year my #1 seeded team was on the verge of being KO-ed this as well. The fact is that the best teams in fantasy don’t always win (which was one of the roots of my pessimistic outlook in the first place).
Last year when the fantasy football season was over and done with I went back and analyzed my picks and some of my other moves. There were a lot of draft picks where I wished I had picked someone else in retrospect…it was tough to do that with this year’s team, but my team could have actually been better if it hadn’t been for some poor waiver wire decisions though. It’s pretty tough to argue against taking Andre Johnson in the 1st round. He missed the last 2 games of the season due to injury and 3 overall, and that’s not the best time for your stud wide receiver to go down, but I was able to plug the holes. Even with he missed games and nagging ankle injury that plagued him since week 2, he was good enough to be the 8th rated wide receiver. My 2nd round pick, Pierre Thomas, was pretty much a bust due to injury, but without knowing that I’m not sure who I else I would’ve picked. Greg Jennings was my 3rd pick, and he started off slow, but finished as the 4th best receiver in the league. In the 4th round, I took Dwayne Bowe, who finished as the 2nd rated receiver. I could have potentially had the greatest receiver corps in the history of fantasy football (I later picked up Stevie Johnson as a free agent, who finished as the 10th best fantasy receiver), but Bowe started off so slow that I dropped him after the 4th or 5th week of the season…shame on me. I took Matt Forte in the 5th round. Forte had been overrated the year before (was rated as like the 4th or 5th best player overall in preseason fantasy rankings in 2009). After a subpar season, he was consequently underrated going into this year, and he finished as the 11th best running back and 21st ranked player overall this season. In the 6th round, I picked Pierre Garcon, who I prematurely dropped after a slow start to the season as well. Garcon finished the year as a top 40 receiver, but he was probably a top 25 wideout for the 2nd half of the year. I was pretty strong at receiver anyway, but he would have been a nice spot starter in my flex position, and that would have kept him out of someone else’s lineup also.
Having basically wasted half of my top 6 picks should have crushed my fantasy hopes for this year right off the bat, but the late part of the draft is where my bread was buttered. I took Joe Flacco in the 7th round. Flacco was solid for me, but not spectacular…however, I picked up Ben Roethlisberger as a free agent, and Flacco and Roethlisberger gave me a pretty good quarterback platoon. I picked Chris Cooley in the 8th round. By then, most of the more highly rated tight ends were off the board, but Cooley finished the year as the 7th rated fantasy tight end, so I got pretty good value for him in that spot.
The 9th round is where I hit the jackpot. Often times, fantasy leagues are won and lost because of one player. Several years ago, millions of fantasy football teams went in the toilet when Ronnie Brown blew his knee out like in week 7 or the season. Last year, millions of leagues were won or lost depending on who was able to get to their computer and pick Cedric Benson off of the waiver wire first. Peyton Hillis was a good example of that type of free agent pickup this year. Arian Foster was the one player that swung leagues more than anyone else this season though, and I had the good fortune of drafting him. To be honest, I had my eye on Foster throughout the preseason leading up to our fantasy draft. I thought he was a potential sleeper, and he would be worth a mid-round pick. Having said that, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I knew how good he was actually going to be. In our league, Foster was projected to go in the 7th or 8th round I believe. I had him in my draft queue for awhile, but no one else seemed willing to take him at that point. I think he was the highest rated remaining player in the draft for a good round or so, and for whatever reason (either people had more pressing needs or just had no idea who he was) more lowly rated players kept getting picked before him. I was trying to hold off on picking him myself because I had my eye on some other guys as well, but in the 9th round I finally pulled the trigger. From talking to other people in the league, it was a good thing I picked him then because he wouldn’t have lasted another whole round. Simply put, Foster was a beast. He finished the year as the overall #1 rated fantasy player. Fittingly, he carried my team in the championship round with nearly 200 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns that week. I was also proud of my 10th round pick, Fred Jackson. Jackson was in a 3-way backfield battle when the season began, but eventually regained his starting position. He finished the year as a top 25 fantasy back. Still, everything paled in comparison to drafting Foster. Regardless of how shrewd or not so shrewd some of my other moves were, he pretty much was the difference between winning the league and having a mediocre team that got bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs. The rest of my later draft picks were inconsequential, and this season once again proved that in fantasy sports it’s better to be lucky than good.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
All I Want For Christmas Is A Blake Griffin Dunk
[Written 2 days ago...]
I was originally going to write about something else today, but remember when I did my “man crushes” post several weeks ago? Well, team success hasn’t exactly followed LaRon Landry and Blake Griffin, and although Landry was personally playing at a defensive POY level, he hasn’t played in a few weeks and is now on season ending injured reserve. While the Clips haven’t exactly been tearing it up (for the better part of the season they had the NBA’s worst record), they have suddenly started to show improvement. They have gone 4-6 over their last 10 games. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s better than going 4-16, which is what they were at one time. So, while they might not win 45 or 50 games this year like I once predicted, they are no longer in the Pacific division basement, and they have only the 4th worst record in the whole league as of right now…baby steps, baby steps.
Griffin has been a monster though. In the words of Joakim Noah, “He’s a problem.” He’s currently averaging 21 points and 12 rebounds per game for the year, which would put him in historic company for a rookie. Also, for a rook he’s been remarkably consistent, as he posted his 17th consecutive double-double last night (his 23rd in 30 games this year). Those numbers are impressive, but he’s been even better of late. His last five game split looks like this: 24 ppg, 15 rpg, 4 apg, while shooting 53% from the field. Add to that the fact that he’s worth at least 1 or 2 oh my damn, did you just see that plays every night. Case in point, last night when he threw down a one-handed lefty oop where at his highest point he’s just about eye level with the rim.
At this point, I feel like I could just post a “B-Griff highlight of the night” the day after every Clippers game. Even though their record is still terrible, I’ve come to three realizations. 1st, Clippers highlights/games are now appointment viewing for me. On most days I put on Sportscenter before I leave for work in the morning, and if I don’t get a chance to see the Clips recap (usually in a losing effort still at this point) it’s the first thing I check for online once I get to my desk at work. 2nd, since the Wizards can never seem to get it together, I’m pretty close to adopting the Clippers as my other favorite team. Along with Griffin, Eric Gordon is a fun player to watch. If they can remove some of the dead weight on the team and acquire a couple more good young players, they might have something there (although when your owner is Donald Sterling that might be asking too much). It would also be really cool if they uprooted the Lakers, who I loathe (as anyone who knows me knows). 3rd, I haven’t bought a jersey in probably 5 years. I have never really been a jersey guy to begin with, and I soured on them even more due to the fact that seemingly every time I got one that guy would immediately get hurt or traded…but I would at least entertain the thought of rocking a Griffin jersey…maybe.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
I was originally going to write about something else today, but remember when I did my “man crushes” post several weeks ago? Well, team success hasn’t exactly followed LaRon Landry and Blake Griffin, and although Landry was personally playing at a defensive POY level, he hasn’t played in a few weeks and is now on season ending injured reserve. While the Clips haven’t exactly been tearing it up (for the better part of the season they had the NBA’s worst record), they have suddenly started to show improvement. They have gone 4-6 over their last 10 games. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s better than going 4-16, which is what they were at one time. So, while they might not win 45 or 50 games this year like I once predicted, they are no longer in the Pacific division basement, and they have only the 4th worst record in the whole league as of right now…baby steps, baby steps.
Griffin has been a monster though. In the words of Joakim Noah, “He’s a problem.” He’s currently averaging 21 points and 12 rebounds per game for the year, which would put him in historic company for a rookie. Also, for a rook he’s been remarkably consistent, as he posted his 17th consecutive double-double last night (his 23rd in 30 games this year). Those numbers are impressive, but he’s been even better of late. His last five game split looks like this: 24 ppg, 15 rpg, 4 apg, while shooting 53% from the field. Add to that the fact that he’s worth at least 1 or 2 oh my damn, did you just see that plays every night. Case in point, last night when he threw down a one-handed lefty oop where at his highest point he’s just about eye level with the rim.
At this point, I feel like I could just post a “B-Griff highlight of the night” the day after every Clippers game. Even though their record is still terrible, I’ve come to three realizations. 1st, Clippers highlights/games are now appointment viewing for me. On most days I put on Sportscenter before I leave for work in the morning, and if I don’t get a chance to see the Clips recap (usually in a losing effort still at this point) it’s the first thing I check for online once I get to my desk at work. 2nd, since the Wizards can never seem to get it together, I’m pretty close to adopting the Clippers as my other favorite team. Along with Griffin, Eric Gordon is a fun player to watch. If they can remove some of the dead weight on the team and acquire a couple more good young players, they might have something there (although when your owner is Donald Sterling that might be asking too much). It would also be really cool if they uprooted the Lakers, who I loathe (as anyone who knows me knows). 3rd, I haven’t bought a jersey in probably 5 years. I have never really been a jersey guy to begin with, and I soured on them even more due to the fact that seemingly every time I got one that guy would immediately get hurt or traded…but I would at least entertain the thought of rocking a Griffin jersey…maybe.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
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