Tag: basketball

The year-end post, circa 2020

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This video by Carters encapsulates how I feel extremely succinctly.  I know 2020 has been a historically catastrophic year by any number of measures, and I’m not going to even try and change anyone’s mind who’ve already decided that there’s absolutely nothing at all redeemable about it.  It’s a fair judgment, and there’s tons of justification to where I just have to shrug and agree that such X and other Y really are terrible things, and leave people alone to continue believing that 2020 was the worst year in human existence.

Frankly, if not for the one obvious event in my life this year, I’d probably be right there with them.  But because of said event, there’s absolutely nothing else that could really occur that can make me possibly think that 2020 was anything other than among the greatest years of my life.  Like many, I too know my share of people whom coronavirus has dually affected throughout the year, or had some very unfortunate events or news take place, and my heart genuinely, sincerely goes out to them, and I wish for nothing but the best for them and their loved ones.

But nothing is going to change my perspective on 2020 being a magnificent year, because nothing has been a greater event in my life than the birth of my daughter, right before all the shit really began to hit the fan.  And throughout the remainder of the year, for every piece of horrible, shitty news, note about someone dying, bad day at work, or any other reason for stress and unhappiness, I was always mere steps away from being able to go pick up my daughter and hold her in my arms and will away the negativity.

As ironic as it may seem, and I’ve said it as much, as much as coronavirus and the global pandemic have been devastating to the world throughout the year, it’s inadvertently put me in the most optimal position in the sense that I’ve gotten to work from home since the shit hit the fan, and I’ve gotten to spend a tremendous amount of time more raising my daughter than if the world wasn’t in lockdown and I had to go back to work in the office while my child would be in a daycare, in the hands and responsibility of people I don’t know. 

I don’t fucking want that, even if there were no coronavirus in play.  I’ve been fortunate and I treasure all the time I’ve had and will continue to have being close to my kid, and it’s ironic that I have to thank the selfish stupidity of ‘Muricans for being so stupid and greedy that they can’t or refuse to comply to the behaviors that would’ve eradicated all of this if we just had some collective cooperation.

But outside of my child and coronavirus, 2020 has been somewhat of an eventful year.  Yes, most of it was bad, but not everything was completely putrid.  And as I tend to do every year, I take some notes on a daily basis of the things that happen that are remotely interesting to me, so I guess behind the jump, we’ll take a look back through the year that everyone loves to hate and can’t wait to see end:

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How to Combat Intentional Feeding in the NBA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After wasting 2.5 hours of my life watching WW84, I needed something to bring me back, something to make me laugh, and think about anything at all other than how much WW84 sucked.  And if there’s one good thing remaining about the NBA, it’s that they know no boundaries of how much to suck to the amusement of old man purists like myself who still think the 90s were the best era ever and that there’s no sports theme greater than the NBA on NBC theme, in history.

So when the Dallas Mavericks blew the LA Clippers out by 51 points, my interest was immediately piqued, because it always fascinates me just how pathetic the NBA gets year after year and that there’s basically no more pride and this defeatist mentality that pervades in all the players of today that allows for all of this to happen.

Like, back in my day, it was pretty rare to see a 20-point blowout, and those were pretty rare to begin with.  Shit, the most bonkers game I’d seen in my life at that time was this one Knicks vs. Bulls game where Derek Harper had the NBA Jam fire code going and the vaunted ‘96 Bulls got blown out by 30 points. 

But it was literal decades before I saw a game where a team got blown out by 40+ much less 50 points.  Ironically, this isn’t even the worst blowout that I’d ever seen, as I’d actually brogged about it in the past when the Memphis Grizzlies somehow got blown out by 61 points a few years ago.

The thing is, when I was really into League of Legends, and the professional scene specifically, I used to make tons of analogies about how basketball strategies translated very well in League of Legends, most notably when at the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational that mythical then-gf and I went to, Edward Gaming employed the MJ strategy against SK Telecom, let Faker have LeBlanc and do whatever he wanted, but built their team around stomping the shit out of all of Faker’s teammates, en route to a critical game 5 win.

However, this is a scenario where the tables have turned, and it’s about time we applied some League of Legends, or competitive gaming logic, to the NBA.  Primarily the idea that NBA games occasionally go full tilt, and the players ultimately end up griefing, intentionally feeding, and just plain forfeiting, regardless of if the fact that games don’t actually allow for unconditional surrenders, no matter how much the players probably wished they did, like when the Clippers were down 50 points at halftime.

Needless to say, the Clippers phoned it in super early, as if Luka Doncic got two early kills, and the Clippers basically decided that there was no more point in playing the rest of the game because he was fed and was going to snowball and dominate.  And as much as I find ironic amusement in the ownage the Clippers suffered, really it’s still no good for the NBA that teams phone it in and don’t seem to care that they’re allow themselves to be humiliated like such.

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Appreciation for what LeBron James has accomplished

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whether you like LeBron James or you don’t, what can’t be disputed is the success he’s had throughout his career.  After winning his fourth NBA championship, with his third different franchise, I think it’s safe to say that he’s on a platform that not even guys like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant can measure up to him.

Obviously most everyone in the sports world is generally under the belief that MJ is the true Greatest Of All Time, and if there was ever a person in history that would have come close to the crown, MJ himself basically said it was Kobe.  I don’t disagree with Jordan being the GOAT and that Kobe was the closest thing to the Heir to Air, but at the same time, I really began to think that there was a lot of deliberate disrespect sent to LeBron while these claims were made.

I kind of get it too, I thought LeBron was pretty shitty when he jumped to the Heat, and had the whole The Decision spectacle, but as time as passed, and his body of work has expanded and grown, and we’ve seen the kid grow into the man he is today, and all I really want to say these days is, fuck the comparisons to MJ or Kobe, LeBron is just out there being the greatest LeBron there could possibly be.  The GLBOAT.

Because when the day is over, LeBron is never going to get the respect that MJ or Kobe ever got.  So, and I’m guessing he’s already figured it out himself already, he’s fine with that, and he’s simply carving out his own legacy that doesn’t measure up to them, and raising his own bar, that will be the measuring stick for all sorts of future players to try to aspire to be the GOAT or the GLBOAT.

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Now that’s how to protest

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seems unprecedented: in the midst of the NBA playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks boycott their game 5 matchup against the Orlando Magic, in protest of the shooting of an unarmed black man by the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, prompting the NBA to cancel all games for the day

To my friends, I first made the obvious, low-hanging fruit joke about how the Bucks did the Magic a favor and kept them alive for one more day, seeing as how they were up 3-1 in the best of seven and were probably going to close out the series tonight, but the reality is, I’m actually pretty cool with what the Bucks did.

Far too often, we see celebrities and professional athletes talk a big game about the reach they have and they say a lot of meaningful things on Twitter about how change is needed, black lives mattering, and all sorts of political statements.  But after they hit send, they put their phones down, and then go back to making movies, music, or putting on jerseys and playing sports, for millions and millions of dollars that they make for themselves, and billions and billions of dollars for the people they work for.  And when the day is over, nothing happens, and this perpetual cycle of humanity failing continues on until the next tragic events causes everything to start all over again.

As long as life goes on, there’s little reason for anyone to stop what they’re doing and try and make any changes, of any size or magnitude.  But when the machine is abruptly killed when it is expecting to be churning at its maximum capacity, people will undoubtedly have to stop and look and wonder what the fuck is going on; and that’s precisely what the Milwaukee Bucks did, when they actually did boycott a pivotal and meaningful nationally televised basketball game.  Make no mistake, the rest of the NBA’s games of the day were cancelled in response and attempt to show solidarity, but this doesn’t happen if one team doesn’t make the first move, and that’s undoubtedly the Bucks.

I also love that it was the Bucks that did it, and it’s obvious why the team from Wisconsin did it, but I just think back to when the Bucks were the bottom dwellers of the NBA and that’s all I can ever think of the Milwaukee Bucks, despite the fact that nowadays, they’ve got a ten-foot tall all-star and are basically the best team in the entire league.

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Patrick Ewing just cannot stop getting owned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unfortunate: Patrick Ewing tests positive for coronavirus

To think that when Patrick Ewing had to deal with the renewed spotlight of how much Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls owned him over and over again throughout his career thanks to ESPN’s The Last Dance documentary, he probably didn’t imagine things could get any worse.

But then, last Friday it’s announced that he has tested positive for coronavirus.

Boom.

Admittedly, I was a Knicks fan growing up and I loved the hell out of Patrick Ewing.  His jersey was the first sports jersey I’d ever gotten in my life.  I even had a poster of Patrick Ewing in my room, and I always picked the Knicks in NBA Jam.

But there’s no real way to debate the fact that throughout his career, and now his life, Patrick Ewing is just a guy that just can’t stop getting owned.

After winning a National Championship for Georgetown in 1984 (his second attempt mind you, his first try was thwarted by of course, Michael Jordan), this rest of his career is just a cautionary montage of him getting owned over and over again.  Drafted first overall by the New York Knicks in 1985, Ewing definitely revitalized the franchise and the Knicks were almost never not relevant in the playoff picture throughout his entire time on the squad, but the unfortunate fate was that Ewing and the Knicks never won a championship.

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Among others, fuck the Lakers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Of the numerous things that has pushed me from disenchanted to faith broken with America has been the recent events of how the Personal Paycheck Program, or what most people know as “the small business relief” program, was abused like a child on a Lifetime network special, and ultimately ran out of money, leaving countless small business owners across America dead in the water.

For clarification, what had happened was that a ton of notable, recognizable and most importantly, large businesses, began declaring themselves as small businesses, and began applying for the PPP loans left and right, and the next thing we know is that companies such as Ruths Chris Steakhouse, Shake Shack, Ritz Carlton hotels and W Hotels, among countless large businesses were receiving millions of dollars in relief loans, and eventually the entire PPP program literally ran out of money and said fuck it and fuck you to the rest of all the applicants that were actual small businesses whom the program really was designed for.

Basically, they all gamed the system because America is not the smartest kid in the class in spite of what Americans might believe, and the criteria and literature behind the loan qualifications had more holes than a Baked Potato in Charge Twitter rant, and big businesses were more than happy to capitalize.  Most franchised businesses began applying as individual applicants to qualify and then suddenly Potbelly Sandwich Shop has amassed $10M in loans despite the fact that they’re literally a publicly traded company, while the local sub shop in your neighborhood can’t even get a form letter of rejection, because the US Postal Service is under fire, and there’s no money for fucking postage.

However, among the elites that have received PPP money, one of the ones that ticked a nerve with me was the Los Angeles Lakers basketball organization, which received $4.6M in loans from the program.

The Lakers, an NBA team, which like most professional sport teams, practically prints money, applied for, and received money reserved for small businesses.

Fuck the Lakers.  They’re literally a franchise valued at over $3 billion dollars, and they’ve got the audacity to cry poor and apply for a PPP loan?  To say bullshit on this is about an understatement as saying coronavirus is just a really bad flu.

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When the venue becomes more notorious than the team

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apple News seems to know to look more for stories that have the capability to entertain instead of just depress me with the shitty way the world is.  That being said, I came across this story about how the American Airlines Arena in Miami were foregoing their partnership with the venue, and that the naming rights for the building were up for grabs.  And among the numerous companies that would love to slap their name on a building and be THE home of the Miami Heat, one rose to the top of the heap, in terms of intrigue, interest and sheer entertainment potential.

Bang Bros, the pornographic website, has apparently put together a very serious proposal and ponied up a ten million dollar bid in order to acquire the rights to the venue, hoping to name the place the Bang Bros Center.  To which it doesn’t take a 17-year old to realize that that would make it the BBC, which most certainly doesn’t represent the acronym for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Needless to say, despite the fact that there is probably a 100% chance this will never happen, no matter how seriously and legitimately Bang Bros presents their proposal, I have to say that this one of the more funny and classic attempts for a pornographic company trying to crawl out of the dark and dirty recesses of the internet and into something physical and tangible, and in this case, really, really huge.

The funny thing to me is that there aren’t a ton of cities that could probably be more likely to get away with smut like this, but I’d have to put Miami up there as one that could.  It’s a city full of vapid and superficial people, a ton of men and women who look like they’d be in Bang Bros’s library somewhere, and the general culture of Miami is pretty loose and probably where a ton of porn is shot anyway.  And the majority of people who go to Heat games are probably a more concentrated sample of the culture, considering the ludicrous price of going to NBA games, and that they’re places for people to show off more than actually watch basketball.

But of course this isn’t going to happen.  No city in their right mind would sell out their treasured sports venue to a pornographic website, no matter how much money they’d offer up.  Primarily due to antiquated beliefs like “for the kids” and general integrity, and not just the fact that aside from Bang Bros, there are probably other, more boring and square companies with deep pockets are probably more than willing to +$1 anything Bang Bros comes to the table with.

But let’s be real here; there is a rare opportunity in this where a venue could become way more newsworthy than the team(s) that play in it.  Like, it wouldn’t matter if the Miami Heat had the 1992 Dream Team starting or the shitty roster called Team USA that just lost two straight international games, the product on the court wouldn’t come close to garnering the attention that the name outside the building would.  And in that regard, that’s about the greatest blessing a franchise could possibly want, where it wouldn’t matter if the Heat had to hit the ceiling of the salary cap or not, people would still show up to the BBC, just because all dudes and their bimbo dates just want the kick of going to a place called the BBC.

Shit, even I’d considering actually going back down to Miami and foregoing a baseball game for a night, just so I could go to the BBC and take a hundred sniggering Boooker T mugshot face selfies, just so I could boast on social media and/or my brog about how I visited the BBC.  And surely, I can’t be the only dude on the planet that would feel the same way.

As far as I’m concerned, the fact that this is all but guaranteed to fall through, seems like one of the more tragic decisions of foregoing great profitability in the name trying to operate business with a modicum of integrity.  Last time I checked, I didn’t realize those things were so mutually exclusive.