The 2013 NBA Finals were a pleasure. Although the outcome was yet another victory for things that are annoying, it was an incredible series and let's also remember that there are worse things than the Miami Heat. The Heat do try and do care. J.R. Smith is never winning an NBA Championship because he has no idea (I think he just opted out of his contract for next season...probably because he's "good").
This blog, instead of reporting, researching or predicting, has become mainly about moral judgments of players and teams relative to their respective sport. The Heat (and you, if you root for them) are lame for a few reasons...
Let's pretend you don't give a fuck about Cleveland and you take pleasure in watching bad things happen to people who've never had anything good happen to them. This takes away the sympathy factor of leaving Cleveland (the tougher and, subjectively, more noble job) for Miami (a fan base who doesn't care and a team that is stacked).
LeBron James is the best player in the league and is the best player since Michael Jordan. The Spurs showed really effectively what is so annoying about the Heat. The lesson of sports at a high level is that, even if you are born the most gifted athlete ever, you still have to learn to play smart and unselfishly to dominate and when you do, it's a beautiful thing.
I'm not saying that LeBron isn't a smart or unselfish player. He's probably the smartest player in the league and remarkably unselfish for how good he is. And, when pushed to his limits (as he has been the past two seasons), he has really been anything we've ever wanted him to be. So why root against the guy?
The decision LeBron made was this: He's the best player but he kept getting beaten by teams with players inferior to him but who have found a balance and an inner peace between one another. Instead of striving for that peace between him and his teammates, he decided to double (and triple) down on that all-encompassing talent and join with the closest thing to him in Wade. Wade, like LeBron, drags teams to the playoffs and beyond, and it looks impressive but it doesn't look pretty. That's because it's bad basketball. Him leaving Cleveland was not unselfish or leaving someone or some city that was holding him back, it was purely lazy and selfish. He is not over criticized for doing it. He's an incredible athlete with an incredible sports brain and he doubled down on the athleticism, secretly the less impressive of his two sides. Nobody cares if you're big and strong...Josh Smith is big and strong. Jumping high is not nearly as interesting as personal and team-wide evolution. I get the vibe that the real goal of the Heat is to prove that they don't have to do anything more than what they were born with to beat everyone. "I'm better than you and that's how it's gonna be." It's ingrained in my core to want to beat those guys.
It's a new demographic of sports fans who put up an "enlightened" front and taunt the general public when LeBron is still the best player in the league and plays as such. Fuck you people. You're not enlightened. The thing is, nobody relates to the Heat.
Oh really? You can really relate to being, by far, the most gifted person in the world at something? Wow that's really impressive. What is that thing, if you don't mind me asking?
The Heat are anti-progress and anti-beauty, period. They beat you with raw power and unrefined skill and smarts and they mug to the cameras the whole way. Most of us are mortal and deal with subtle to not-so-subtle slights from this type of person or entity in various arenas of life. Outside-of-Miami Heat fans nuzzle up to the tyrants instead of fighting back. Heat fans are Stephen from Django. They taunt their fellow man when the favorites win again. It's disgusting.
But I guess whatever, who cares...
NBA Draft
The Cavs have the number 1 overall pick and it's semi-exciting. This draft isn't very good, especially at the top, so it's about the worst draft since I've been alive to have won the lottery.
I have no idea what the Cavs are going to do, but they are going to regret NOT drafting Victor Oladipo. I say this because I think he's the best player in the draft and I'm almost positive the Cavs won't draft him.
"Upside" is not a thing. When has a tall guy with no skill become one of the best players in the league? Roy Hibbert is pretty good, but he was a late first rounder anyway. How many times has that guy been drafted and now you don't know how to spell their names?
I watched a lot of the Big Ten and not that much of anything else. I like Oladipo A LOT, Trey Burke a REGULAR AMOUNT and Cody Zeller NOT VERY MUCH AT ALL. And don't forget about Deshaun Thomas aka "Chuck City."
The draft is fun as shit and I'll be doing at poor job at work because I will be watching the draft instead of paying any attention to anything, but if you're looking for a way to predict who is going to be good, remember this if nothing else: Is this guy really good at basketball? Is he?!?! Not many are.
Enjoy Baseball Season.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
NBA Playoffs and the Soul of a Game
"...if you believe yourself worth of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here."
--Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist
With any creative performance, there is a motivation to achieve "perfection" but at the same time, the knowledge that perfection isn't possible. And to any performer, or player, the question is, what to do about this?
There are three (and maybe more) things one can do about it:
1. Embrace humanity's imperfection.
The Chicago Bulls exemplify this concept. It's almost like they enjoy bad luck. The Bulls want the most difficult challenge, truly. They play a very physical defensive style that seams to lack any beauty at all and even seems hell bent on destroying it.
The Bulls, however, are not the enemy of beauty or the Soul of the Game. To disrupt something so well, one must understand the thing he wishes to disrupt. The Bulls know the language of the Game and simply play to their strengths which, in its ugliness, is somewhat beautiful.
2. Ignore it.
...Or be oblivious to it.
This is what most teams do, really. Most teams are too lacking in skill and talent that there is not enough cohesion to even get to the point where the abstract concept of perfection is relevant. But we're concerned with the playoffs here.
The best examples of this are the two New York teams; the Knicks and Nets. Both teams are hard to watch, most of all the Nets. The Nets have talent, but they don't reach for anything above themselves. The Nets lost four games out of seven, and a game seven at home, to a much less talented and a much more hobbled team in the Bulls. The Knicks, too, underachieved against a team that had no business being any trouble.
So what are these teams playing for? Why do they even bother being on the court?
The truth is, I don't know. The Nets were heavily favored in game seven and, to me, it looked like their motivation was to avoid embarrassment.
Often it can seem that the teams who "know" that they won't win the title have much lower motivation than a team that feels it could. While this might be no surprise, a Championship is still a motivation that stems from outside approval. Being a "champion" is just a word. It's a strong word and is used by enough people that it has become very important in the sports narrative, but it's still just vindication which, for a true artist, shouldn't be necessary.
3. Reach out for perfection.
The only player I've really seen even attempt this is Stephen Curry.
Drawing fouls, these days, is considered a legitimate strategy. Despite the threat of fines by the league, flopping is rampant and it works. Everybody knows that the referees ruin the game.
Stephen Curry lives above of these flaws of the game. He's the best shooter the league has ever seen which opens the floor for his incredible passing which is accentuated by his flawless ball handling. Curry has touched perfection for short stretches in these playoffs and it's made them beautiful to watch.
The biggest, strongest and most famous will probably win the Championship this season, but who really cares? The ones who don't watch the games, or do, will act like they care, and use the results of these playoffs as arguments in favor of the player of their choosing, but these people don't care. The labels and accolades laid upon teams and players by the public sports narrative are really irrelevant.
The Soul of the Game is what matters.
--Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist
With any creative performance, there is a motivation to achieve "perfection" but at the same time, the knowledge that perfection isn't possible. And to any performer, or player, the question is, what to do about this?
There are three (and maybe more) things one can do about it:
1. Embrace humanity's imperfection.
The Chicago Bulls exemplify this concept. It's almost like they enjoy bad luck. The Bulls want the most difficult challenge, truly. They play a very physical defensive style that seams to lack any beauty at all and even seems hell bent on destroying it.
The Bulls, however, are not the enemy of beauty or the Soul of the Game. To disrupt something so well, one must understand the thing he wishes to disrupt. The Bulls know the language of the Game and simply play to their strengths which, in its ugliness, is somewhat beautiful.
2. Ignore it.
...Or be oblivious to it.
This is what most teams do, really. Most teams are too lacking in skill and talent that there is not enough cohesion to even get to the point where the abstract concept of perfection is relevant. But we're concerned with the playoffs here.
The best examples of this are the two New York teams; the Knicks and Nets. Both teams are hard to watch, most of all the Nets. The Nets have talent, but they don't reach for anything above themselves. The Nets lost four games out of seven, and a game seven at home, to a much less talented and a much more hobbled team in the Bulls. The Knicks, too, underachieved against a team that had no business being any trouble.
So what are these teams playing for? Why do they even bother being on the court?
The truth is, I don't know. The Nets were heavily favored in game seven and, to me, it looked like their motivation was to avoid embarrassment.
Often it can seem that the teams who "know" that they won't win the title have much lower motivation than a team that feels it could. While this might be no surprise, a Championship is still a motivation that stems from outside approval. Being a "champion" is just a word. It's a strong word and is used by enough people that it has become very important in the sports narrative, but it's still just vindication which, for a true artist, shouldn't be necessary.
3. Reach out for perfection.
The only player I've really seen even attempt this is Stephen Curry.
Drawing fouls, these days, is considered a legitimate strategy. Despite the threat of fines by the league, flopping is rampant and it works. Everybody knows that the referees ruin the game.
Stephen Curry lives above of these flaws of the game. He's the best shooter the league has ever seen which opens the floor for his incredible passing which is accentuated by his flawless ball handling. Curry has touched perfection for short stretches in these playoffs and it's made them beautiful to watch.
The biggest, strongest and most famous will probably win the Championship this season, but who really cares? The ones who don't watch the games, or do, will act like they care, and use the results of these playoffs as arguments in favor of the player of their choosing, but these people don't care. The labels and accolades laid upon teams and players by the public sports narrative are really irrelevant.
The Soul of the Game is what matters.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
2013 Super Bowl: San Francisco 49ers vs. Baltimore Ravens
I've been extremely lazy thus far in my "analysis" of the NFL playoffs. In fact, I haven't even written anything about any of the games of the past two weeks (however, if you look at my scores, you'll notice that I would have won or pushed on every game in the playoffs. Ha!) so I feel as though I should write something about the Super Bowl since it's the most important event on the sports calendar.
Let me just say, I'm excited about this game. If you read the parentheses, you know that this year's playoffs have gone roughly the way I expected them to, which is unusual. Most of the time, SOMEBODY slips through. Last year, for example, I thought that the Giants were going to play the Ravens, but the Ravens blew the game. That gave me an easy pick in the Super Bowl, just picking against the team that I believed to be fraudulent, the New England Patriots.
This year, they proved it earlier and more definitively.
In retrospect, the Patriots have been a fraud since the 18-1 year. I've mentioned in posts a handful of times how once New England started being an offensive-minded team, while becoming a more impressive regular season team, have not won a Super Bowl and in the past two years, haven't really even competed very well against hard-hitting, tough, talented teams in the regular OR post season. I want to say that they've become the St. Louis Rams team that they beat in Super Bowl XXXVI, but they're not because they're not talented.
Bill Belichick is disgusting, obviously. He won the Super Bowl with a team based on defense that actually had a personality. That personality, to me, was a little bit unlikable simply because Rodney Harrison was on it (he was a dirty player, he did PEDs, and he's a terrible analyst), but at least it had one. These days, now that Belichick has had more time and credibility to mold this team into his own image, there are two things that shock you: 1. How coldly efficient the offense is, and 2. How strangely lacking of talent the offense OR defense is. The stats guys love them, but the scoreboard only likes them.
The way they lost to the Ravens on Championship Sunday was ugly because they didn't fight AT ALL. The whole point of Super Bowl XXXVI was that, even though the Rams had all this offensive talent, the Patriots just hit them so hard that they won. Now, New England wants to do anything but fight.
The two teams left are the two teams who wouldn't mind if the Super Bowl was cancelled and it was just decided that both teams were just going to fight to the death to see who wins, which makes this game very very difficult to pick. In the Super Bowl, you can assume that both teams will be trying and won't be distracted, so it's the only game in the year that you should feel confident betting on. In a regular season game, I could picture a guy being more worried about something his wife said or if he locked his keys in his car. In the Super Bowl, who cares what your wife said?! Get a new wife!! There's only so many Super Bowls.
So here's what I look for...
1. Is one team just way way better than they other one?
In this case....way way better? No. Better? I think so.
I do believe that the 49ers are the better team. They have a better offense, defense and coach...all by a small margin, but I think it adds up. I also think that the NFC has been better than the AFC all year.
2. Is one team more ready to "throw down" than the other?
These two teams are fantastic examples of this (and LeBron leaving for Miami is the opposite of this).
This is concept is the difference between the guy or the team that is secretly hoping to play one team over another or is worried about his own legacy or is hoping to win because wouldn't it be great to win the Super Bowl? Teams that want to "throw down" can smell a challenge and are ready to wager everything on proving they're the best, even if they aren't really sure if they are the best. Does that make sense? Whatever, who cares.
Both these teams are TOTALLY down to throw down...that's almost the whole point of these coaches (and Ray Lewis). The Harbaughs want to throw down. It's gonna be fun.
So what prevails? Is it a younger brother over and older brother (ALWAYS GREAT)? Ray Lewis' tears? Young, athletic Kaepernick over weird boring Frankenstein Flacco? Purple over sparkly?
The deciding factor for me is that I think that the 49ers are the better team without sacrificing anything. They're fancy but they're still tough where the Ravens are just tough. Ray Lewis deserves this run for being such a great player and great teammate, but he, in all likelihood, done terrible things and isn't a great guy. Losing in the Super Bowl to a team coached by the first quarterback he ever sacked in the NFL is a just end to Ray Lewis' career.
Super Bowl XLVII: Jim's Revenge.
49ers over Ravens, 27-17
Let me just say, I'm excited about this game. If you read the parentheses, you know that this year's playoffs have gone roughly the way I expected them to, which is unusual. Most of the time, SOMEBODY slips through. Last year, for example, I thought that the Giants were going to play the Ravens, but the Ravens blew the game. That gave me an easy pick in the Super Bowl, just picking against the team that I believed to be fraudulent, the New England Patriots.
This year, they proved it earlier and more definitively.
In retrospect, the Patriots have been a fraud since the 18-1 year. I've mentioned in posts a handful of times how once New England started being an offensive-minded team, while becoming a more impressive regular season team, have not won a Super Bowl and in the past two years, haven't really even competed very well against hard-hitting, tough, talented teams in the regular OR post season. I want to say that they've become the St. Louis Rams team that they beat in Super Bowl XXXVI, but they're not because they're not talented.
Bill Belichick is disgusting, obviously. He won the Super Bowl with a team based on defense that actually had a personality. That personality, to me, was a little bit unlikable simply because Rodney Harrison was on it (he was a dirty player, he did PEDs, and he's a terrible analyst), but at least it had one. These days, now that Belichick has had more time and credibility to mold this team into his own image, there are two things that shock you: 1. How coldly efficient the offense is, and 2. How strangely lacking of talent the offense OR defense is. The stats guys love them, but the scoreboard only likes them.
The way they lost to the Ravens on Championship Sunday was ugly because they didn't fight AT ALL. The whole point of Super Bowl XXXVI was that, even though the Rams had all this offensive talent, the Patriots just hit them so hard that they won. Now, New England wants to do anything but fight.
The two teams left are the two teams who wouldn't mind if the Super Bowl was cancelled and it was just decided that both teams were just going to fight to the death to see who wins, which makes this game very very difficult to pick. In the Super Bowl, you can assume that both teams will be trying and won't be distracted, so it's the only game in the year that you should feel confident betting on. In a regular season game, I could picture a guy being more worried about something his wife said or if he locked his keys in his car. In the Super Bowl, who cares what your wife said?! Get a new wife!! There's only so many Super Bowls.
So here's what I look for...
1. Is one team just way way better than they other one?
In this case....way way better? No. Better? I think so.
I do believe that the 49ers are the better team. They have a better offense, defense and coach...all by a small margin, but I think it adds up. I also think that the NFC has been better than the AFC all year.
2. Is one team more ready to "throw down" than the other?
These two teams are fantastic examples of this (and LeBron leaving for Miami is the opposite of this).
This is concept is the difference between the guy or the team that is secretly hoping to play one team over another or is worried about his own legacy or is hoping to win because wouldn't it be great to win the Super Bowl? Teams that want to "throw down" can smell a challenge and are ready to wager everything on proving they're the best, even if they aren't really sure if they are the best. Does that make sense? Whatever, who cares.
Both these teams are TOTALLY down to throw down...that's almost the whole point of these coaches (and Ray Lewis). The Harbaughs want to throw down. It's gonna be fun.
So what prevails? Is it a younger brother over and older brother (ALWAYS GREAT)? Ray Lewis' tears? Young, athletic Kaepernick over weird boring Frankenstein Flacco? Purple over sparkly?
The deciding factor for me is that I think that the 49ers are the better team without sacrificing anything. They're fancy but they're still tough where the Ravens are just tough. Ray Lewis deserves this run for being such a great player and great teammate, but he, in all likelihood, done terrible things and isn't a great guy. Losing in the Super Bowl to a team coached by the first quarterback he ever sacked in the NFL is a just end to Ray Lewis' career.
Super Bowl XLVII: Jim's Revenge.
49ers over Ravens, 27-17
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Championship Weekend
San Francisco over ATLANTA
Sunday, 3:00 pm
31-17
NEW ENGLAND over Baltimore
Sunday, 6:30 pm
33-30
Sunday, 3:00 pm
31-17
NEW ENGLAND over Baltimore
Sunday, 6:30 pm
33-30
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Picks: No Comment
DENVER over BALTIMORE
27-19
SAN FRANCISCO over Green Bay
23-17
Seattle over ATLANTA
17-16
NEW ENGLAND over Houston
28-14
New England has plenty up its sleeve.
27-19
SAN FRANCISCO over Green Bay
23-17
Seattle over ATLANTA
17-16
NEW ENGLAND over Houston
28-14
New England has plenty up its sleeve.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
NFL Playoffs 2013
I have no delusions about the Bengals. I want you all to know that.
Here is what my gut tells me about these games.
Cincinnati vs. HOUSTON
Saturday, 4:30 pm
The Houston Texans are ready to be upset. The Texans have played poorly and, perhaps more importantly, uninspired football over the past SEVEN WEEKS. At the same time, Houston is a team that has a short-term track record of being very competent but a long-term record of choking and underachieving. If a team like the Giants (there are no other teams like the Giants) that I felt had a sense of when it's time to show up were playing like this, I wouldn't be worried but Houston hasn't earned that respect.
Another reason I wouldn't be worried? If the Texans are playing the Bengals.
Cincinnati continues to detox from the Palmer/Chad Johnson years with a remarkably not flashy offense and an shockingly solid defense. The Bengals play "the right way" now which is something Bengals fans aren't used to. It's nice to see regular things happen on a football field (like not fumbling punts, making easy game-winning field goals, stopping the other team on third down occasionally...).
That said, playing this way is still new to them. This Bengals team is still full of children basically. If I were going to pick against the Texans, I want to have the feeling that the other team has someone with something up his sleeve...something he knows that you don't. I don't get that feeling here. You can tell that the Bengals are still super excited when they do the mundane things that win games...and so am I. To be a true contender though, you can't get that amped up about routine things. It's a sign that they are still in the phase of learning how to win as opposed to knowing how.
That combined with the fact that this Texans team would be the best team that the Dalton/Green Bengals have ever beaten lead me to be less than optimistic about this game. Still, I'm excited.
28-20, Houston
The rest...
Vikings vs. PACKERS
Saturday, 8:00 pm
31-28, Packers
Colts vs. RAVENS
Sunday, 1:00 pm
31-10, Ravens
Seahawks vs. REDSKINS
Sunday, 4:30 pm
24-17, Seahawks
Here is what my gut tells me about these games.
Cincinnati vs. HOUSTON
Saturday, 4:30 pm
The Houston Texans are ready to be upset. The Texans have played poorly and, perhaps more importantly, uninspired football over the past SEVEN WEEKS. At the same time, Houston is a team that has a short-term track record of being very competent but a long-term record of choking and underachieving. If a team like the Giants (there are no other teams like the Giants) that I felt had a sense of when it's time to show up were playing like this, I wouldn't be worried but Houston hasn't earned that respect.
Another reason I wouldn't be worried? If the Texans are playing the Bengals.
Cincinnati continues to detox from the Palmer/Chad Johnson years with a remarkably not flashy offense and an shockingly solid defense. The Bengals play "the right way" now which is something Bengals fans aren't used to. It's nice to see regular things happen on a football field (like not fumbling punts, making easy game-winning field goals, stopping the other team on third down occasionally...).
That said, playing this way is still new to them. This Bengals team is still full of children basically. If I were going to pick against the Texans, I want to have the feeling that the other team has someone with something up his sleeve...something he knows that you don't. I don't get that feeling here. You can tell that the Bengals are still super excited when they do the mundane things that win games...and so am I. To be a true contender though, you can't get that amped up about routine things. It's a sign that they are still in the phase of learning how to win as opposed to knowing how.
That combined with the fact that this Texans team would be the best team that the Dalton/Green Bengals have ever beaten lead me to be less than optimistic about this game. Still, I'm excited.
28-20, Houston
The rest...
Vikings vs. PACKERS
Saturday, 8:00 pm
31-28, Packers
Colts vs. RAVENS
Sunday, 1:00 pm
31-10, Ravens
Seahawks vs. REDSKINS
Sunday, 4:30 pm
24-17, Seahawks
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