Tag: basketball

I’m sure a college team wouldn’t have gotten blown out by 61

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As if I ever needed any more reason to harp on the fact that the NBA today is utter crap, along came this game the other night where the Memphis Grizzlies lost to the Charlotte Hornets – by 61 points.  I had to stop and do the math in my head when I saw the final 140-79 score to verify that it really was a 61-point blowout, and yep sure enough, the Hornets blew out the Grizzlies by 61 points.

It’s no surprise to me the frequency in which I see 30-point blowouts with regularity in today’s NBA scores, but to see it somehow doubled up, now that takes a tragic amount of effort in futility to attain.  Seriously, I was an NBA fan in an era where 20 points was considered a blowout, and they really didn’t happen that often.  The most lopsided wins I’d ever seen in my life in the NBA up until the turn of the century was this extreme abomination clunker of a game where the Knicks beat the Jordan-led Bulls by 32 points during the 96 season in which the Bulls still won 70 games, and this stinker of a game by the Jazz in the NBA Finals, where they got blown out by 42 points by the Jordan-led Bulls.

But those were just two games in nearly a decade of watching basketball in which I saw such gargantuan blowouts. The Grizzlies somehow managed to lose by a bigger margin (61) than the total score the Jazz put up in that 1998 game (54).  61 points was typically the average score of any team that lost to the defense-heavy, hard hitting Pat Riley-coached New York Knicks teams of the 90s.

To put it in perspective, the only time that I, and probably most people my age, have ever seen a 60+ blowout was in 1992, when the United States Dream Team featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and other superstars blow out a star-struck squad from Angola by 68 points.  The 2018 Charlotte Hornets might be owned by Michael Jordan, but there sure as shit aren’t players remotely close to his level of greatness, that still managed to blow out the Grizz by 61.

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BIG DICK SWINGING SPORTS POST

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s busy season at work.  Life itself has been pretty busy too.  Ironically, as busy life has been transpiring, things have been happening all around that have made me feel like writing, but I simply haven’t really had any time to sit down and do any writing.  There’s no downtime at work for me to slop together some words, and by the time I get home, I’m usually burnt out and not wanting to look at any screen other than my phone for my routine-like playing of Fire Emblem: Heroes.

Typically, whenever things seem brog-worthy, I jot down a quick blurb or note in a Google document for me to revisit whenever I have more time to write about them.  However, due to the busy, I simply haven’t had the time to revisit anything, but the list continued to grow and grow, leaving me feeling anxious about the passage of time to brogging dynamic that I’ve been feeling has been slipping out of my grasp lately.

So now that for the first time, I’ve found that I have a moment to do some writing, I thought I’d save myself as well as my 0 readers the trouble of doing a little consolidation, so that I don’t feel like I should be dumping 1,000 words per topic, but instead go for some quick hits that I’ll do my best to get the point across while covering all of the topics that have piqued my interest over the last week and change. 

This makes even more sense, considering that this particular conglomeration of topics all conveniently happen to be sports related, and since pretty much nobody I know except for me actually cares about sports, it’s a win-win for me, that I get to do some writing, and for the zero who will inevitably glaze over this when it’s eventually published for realsies.

And so we start off with the most notable of events, with the boys in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech taking down yet another ranked ACC powerhouse in men’s basketball, defeating the unholy and reviled #5 Duke.

For those keeping track, this marks the fourth ranked ACC opponent that Tech has defeated this year, with wins against (at the times) #10 North Carolina, #15 Clemson, #2 Virginia.  Now as much as I would much, much, much rather see a football season in which the Hokes took down Clemson, UVA, UNC and Duke, I’m genuinely pleased with the basketball program which has pretty much guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Tournament; where they will get likely get bounced in the first round, but making it to the dance is always important.

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As necessary as an asshole on an elbow

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Despite the efforts of a noble citizen, as predicted, corrupt progress can seldom be stopped when there’s investor profit to be had, and taxpayers to screw.  College Park for better or worse but most likely worse, will be saddled by the future home of The Gateway Center at College Park, the soon-to-be barely used 100,000 square foot venue that will primarily be known for the home of the developmental G-league Atlanta Hawks.

An asshole.  On your elbow.  That’s about how much anyone needs this.

Seriously, in College Park no less.  One of the most impoverished and crime-ridden regions in the entire state, and plopped right near the busiest airport in the country.  Everything about this is completely idiotic, and shocking nobody, this too will have absolutely no easy MARTA rail access or any other transit options, other than buses.  Meaning It will look like one of the fifty long-term parking car lots surrounding it, and probably be victimized just as badly as all of them, by the legions of car break-ins that have plagued this exact area for literal years now.

Literally right down the street is a shopping center that’s plagued with criminal activity that is getting worse, and a bunch of rich idiots think it’s a great idea to waste money and build a giant venue right near it?  Is this what they think gentrification is?  Building nice things in ghetto areas and hoping that things will just magically turn around?  I mean Atlanta’s trying to do that shit on the west end of the city, and plopping Publixes and Chick Fil-As in the ghetto doesn’t seem to be working.  I’d wager money that a brand new convention center/venue is going to drive crime away as much as waving a flashlight will spook some mosquitoes.

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Has there ever been a bigger bitch in the NBA than Dwyane Wade?

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In all honesty there is, LeBron James, whom take nothing away from his actual basketball talent and accomplishments, but I don’t think I’ll ever not see him as the poster child for the most sissy, wimpy and spineless era of the NBA, where Twitter beefs and drama somehow manage to supersede the actual sport of basketball, with no one bigger than LeBron James carrying the torch of passive-aggressive behavior and conduct that sets the tone for the rest of the league.  But for the sake of needing a title for this post, Dwyane “don’t spell it Dwayne” Wade is still a pretty big bitch in his own right.

Don’t get me wrong, historically, Wade is probably the greatest player to have ever suited up for the Miami Heat.  The organization won its first NBA championship on the shoulders of Wade and his ability to sink 75 free throws, and in his prime he was easily one of the greatest players in history.

But I think where the initial seeds of thinking he’s a bitch were sown when he basically decided one day that he would gladly become Robin to the arrival of LeBron James to the Heat in 2010 who immediately asserted his position as the team’s new Batman.  Seriously, who does this?  Completely and voluntarily relinquishes his position on the team to the incoming free agent?  I’m sure he thought he was being a selfless team player, which isn’t a bad thing in its own right, but in the manner in which he did such, to where he kind of became a second-tier player who shied away from leadership and performance responsibilities was downright sad.  A total bitch move, if there ever was one.

And because he voluntarily became a bitch, the Heat decided to treat him like one, like when he opted out of his contract in 2014, thinking he would be able to sign back up on a bigger and longer deal, only for the Heat and the rest of the NBA to basically laugh and go n**** please, and put him in a situation where he walked away from a massive amount of guaranteed money, only to have to tuck his tail between his legs and re-sign with the Heat for a lesser deal, with the rest of the interested world laughing at him the whole way.  Like a bitch.

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Looking stupid, even in victory

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Long story short: Democrat Doug Jones defeats publicly and nationally accused sexual deviant Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama senate race; by a margin of less than 2%

I can’t believe that I’m writing about politics twice in the same week, much less about the dumb state of Alabama, but this is something that I grew remotely intrigued about as the story transpired.  Honestly, despite the fact that to like-minded people, the battle between an accused sex offender versus a not(yet accused)-sex offender should seem like a layup victory for the morally superior, I actually would have put my money on Roy Moore.  Because, the country I live in has repeatedly demonstrated a sheer lack of decent human values in favor of blind misguided political fanaticism, and I would never have imagined a state like Alabama of all places would have been one capable of snapping out of the tragic pattern.

But I was proven wrong.  It’s not often in which I like this result to be the case, but for the sake of the greater good I believe is needed, I’ll take this L with a modicum of relief. 

Naturally, despite the fact that it was a battle between an accused sex offender and someone who has yet to be accused, it still ended up being a race tighter than Mariah Carey’s workout apparel, with a margin of victory allegedly less than 2% for Jones.  Meaning despite the fact that Roy Moore had been drug through the mud and accusers popping out of the woodwork claiming sexual deviancy, over 49% of educated Alabama voters still voted for the him to represent their state in Washington.

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Racist double standards, #47

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SSDD: Ex-NBA player Kenyon Martin blasts current NBA player Jeremy Lin about having dreadlocks, accuses him of “wanting to be black,” Lin rebuts with kindness but also points out Martin’s Chinese character tattoos, owning him as if slavery still existed

Another day, another double standard where a black guy cries victim of ____, but has no hesitation of taking it out on Asian guys.  Honestly, there was a time where I kind of liked Kenyon Martin; I loved those Nets teams of the 2000s with Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson, and I totally pulled for them in the Finals against the Spurs where they lost in six.

Sure, there were always questions about his character, his propensity to whine and argue fouls and his perceived character based on the countless tattoos and questionable demeanor.  But he was still a really decent basketball player that was fun to watch, so I never had any problem with him, even when those Nets teams disbanded and he went off to Denver before I stopped giving any shits about the NBA in general.

But I guess I’m not surprised by him coming out on social media and blasting current-Net Jeremy Lin for having dreadlocks and accusing him of misappropriating black culture and “trying to be black.”  However, I did think of how stupid he sounded before I even read about Lin’s rebuttal, because one, he’s validating the oft-notion that black guys love to pull the race card when they feel that they’re being wronged, but have zero hesitations when it comes to putting down Asians themselves.  Two, dreadlocks do not solely belong to black culture, as I’m sure hippies of all races and colors, Jamaicans and any other Dutch or Latin cultures that utilize dreads would attest to.  And third, I astutely remember that Kenyon Martin has at least one prominent tattoo of Chinese characters, which by his logic would mean he’s misappropriating Chinese culture, thus making him a giant hypocrite.

Well, Kenyon Martin wasn’t in the NBA because of his brains; it just so happens unfortunately for him that the guy he was trading social media barbs with is also Harvard-educated on top of being on his former team.

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Why is this a surprise?

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It shouldn’t be a surprise: retired NBA great Tim Duncan kickboxes to stay in shape, and is apparently very good at it, according to his coach

The insinuation is that this is somehow newsworthy because there’s a modicum of surprise that a man like Tim Duncan, who was best identified as a stalwart basketball player, has the audacity to partake in something not-basketball, like kickboxing.  And that he’s actually pretty good at it, almost good enough to be “a legit competitor in MMA” according to his coach.

But if anyone who followed Tim Duncan’s career as a basketball player shouldn’t really be at all that surprised to find out that he’s also good at kickboxing, because he’s pretty much good at everything once he gets a grasp of the fundamentals.  After all, he wasn’t nicknamed “the Big Fundamental” without just cause.

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