Showing posts with label Mark Cuban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Cuban. Show all posts

Thursday, May 3, 2007

WE'VE DONE IT!!

Yes we! Bay Area fans are the 6th man of this squad. We just humiliated the Mavericks. It's on!! Next round here we come!! Go Warriors!!!!!!!!

Incidentally, as the game was ending just now on TNT, Cuban said something angry to the camera as he passed by. It was inaudible, any lip readers with Tivo, get on this.

WARRRRRRRRRIORS

6 and a half minutes to go, Warriors up 21.

The Bay Area is about to explode. Make no mistake, after this game wraps up in about 15 or 20 minutes, we will take to the streets.
Lock up your daughters, lock up your wife. Lock up your back door and run for your life.
When I finally calm down, I'll get in depth about the greatest playoff upset in history.
The City is back.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Cuban: Crazy or Right?

Part of me loves Mark Cuban. His fire, his money, his team, the fact that he's one of a small handful of owners who look like they genuinely love the game and want their teams to win beyond profits.
The other part of me wants to punch this whiny, spoiled, entitled, chubby faced, goatee-sporting assbag right in his man-boobs.

When he bitched and moaned about a referee against Dallas, I ignored it as the crybabying of a rich punk. But the refs have done everything in their power to hand this series to the Mavs. Last night Baron got a 6th foul on a no-contact play and, moments later, Stephen Jackson was ejected for what appeared to be absolutely nothing. This all handed the Warriors legendary victory right to Dallas.

But it doesn't phase me.

No, the Warriors will not be stopped by such foolishness. Tomorrow in Oakland, Baron and the boys are gonna TCB.



Okay, enough posturing. I don't think there's a "conspiracy," of any kind, but it's just clear; Golden State has Dallas' number, and the refs don't know how to play it. They're either calling fouls at the worst possible time, for no reason, or they're letting the guys play knock down, drag out ball with no calls in the early going.
I wish we could just let them play.
If the foul doesn't clearly alter the play, keep your damn hands off the whistle. It always ends up looking like the refs were out to screw the losers when their calls end up deciding the game.
So no, Cuban's not right. And he's also not crazy. But he clearly wasn't complaining after the refs gift wrapped game 5 for him last night.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Game 1 MVP

Call him Baron, call him B-Diddy. Call him what you want, just call him domination.

Baron Davis in Game 1 against the Mavs:
33 points, 14 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, 4 three pointers, 55% FG, 88% FT, 3 TOs

If we see a better game than that all playoffs long, I'd be surprised.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Mike Freeman: Putting the "Slow" in Slow News Day

Monday's been pretty slow on the news front, and I've been pretty busy with my job that pays. I'll give you a hint, it's not blogging about basketball. Anyhoo, this little item from CBS Sportsline caught my eye... and then jabbed a fork in it and twisted. It's by Mike Freeman. Like Jemele Hill, I'm hoping this dunce isn't long for the journalism world...

I'm right. I'm right in thinking that the Florida Gators could probably beat five lower echelon NBA teams on a neutral court.

Ummm, no you're not right. Obviously this is one of those impossible to settle debates, like who's better; Shaq or Wilt? The reason is an NBA team will never play a college team, and even if they did, it would be an exhibition, and you couldn't take the results as meaningful, because the pro players would not risk injury and hustle their asses off. So clearly we need to settle this hypothetically. Unfortunate, because I'd love to see the Memphis Grizzlies dismantle the Florida Gators by something in the ballpark of 100 points. Every time I read some sports writer who has fallen in love with the "heart," and team play of college ball, I dread the inevitable declaration that _________ (insert university of choice) could beat an NBA team. But this guy is pushing the boundaries of journalistic integrity, rational thought, minimal basketball knowledge and at least a hundred other societal norms.

"The best college team of the last 10 years," Cuban told me in an e-mail, "would lose by 50 to any team at the bottom of the NBA."
That Cuban is so shy with his opinions.
Would the Gators really beat an NBA team?
When asked to explain further, Cuban said: "Because every guy on an NBA roster is better than 99 (percent) of guys on college rosters. They are more skilled, play harder and (are) bigger."
These are the teams Florida would definitely whup: Memphis, Boston and Milwaukee. No-brainers. Memphis might be one of the top 10 worst teams in the history of the sport. Boston is not far behind. Milwaukee is just awful.
After those teams, the Gators would give just about any of the lower-ranked Eastern Conference franchises a fight -- including the New York Knicks.
Go ahead and tell me about the gap in ability and athleticism between the NBA and college. Spout the tripe and nonsense about how great the NBA is. The league is not great; it's top heavy. It is the Mavericks, Detroit, Phoenix and San Antonio. Maybe Cleveland because they have LeBron James. Just about the rest of the league these days is middling, average ball at best.


Oh sweet lord! Thank God Cuban didn't hesitate to put this guy in his place. Memphis is bad. No denying it. And they've definitely had an awful season, one of the worst ever. But they were without their best player for half the year, had coaching and front office turmoil all year, and more than likely have been tanking games since the All Star break to jockey for position on Greg Oden. Incidentally, they have given many excellent teams runs for their money along the way. I'd say Corey Brewer and Joakim Noah could make the Grizzlies roster. They more than likely would not get cut or sent down to the D-League. That said, the rest of the Gators roster can't cut it in the NBA. Cuban is absolutely 100% correct when he states plainly that the worst NBA player is one of the top 1% of college players who can even have a professional basketball career of any kind, let alone make it in the NBA. I would expect that Noah's fieriness and screams of passion would be silenced relatively quickly once he's being guarded, and has to guard, a one Pau Gasol. Maybe Noah won't be a bust in the NBA, although I'm very skeptical of his fundamental skill (I get it, he's a team player, a coach's dream, a fiery passionate guy who loves to win... who has a pretty crappy shot, even from up close, and is deceptively small and unimposing for 6"11') but he would get dominated from top to bottom by an unstoppable beast like Pau. NBA players have to play against other NBA players. They don't get to hone their talents against 5"9', 120 pounders. They have to bump with 7"5' 280 pound freaks of nature. That's why only the best and biggest can do it.

These are the teams Florida would definitely whup: Memphis, Boston and Milwaukee. No-brainers.

There's definitely a no brainer involved here; it's Freeman. For him to suggest that Michael Redd, Andrew Bogut, Charlie Villanueva, Mo Williams and Bobby Simmons would lose against any 5 you could glean from the Gator roster, and what's more, to suggest it's obvious? That's criminal negligence in reporting. I would expect that game to end with a score in the neighborhood of 140-65 in favor of the Bucks. In fact, make it interesting; sub in Earl Boykins for Williams, and Ersan Ilyasova for Villanueva, Dan Gadzuric for Bogut, Charlie Bell for Redd and Ruben Patterson for Simmons. I'll take Ilyasova, Bell, Boykins, Gaddy, and Patterson over the Gators by a more respectable 120-75.
And that's not even factoring in the question of which court and rules they'd be playing with. If they play on the NBA court for 48 minutes with a 24 second shot clock, the college lightweights would have to learn to play a game that moves way faster with a 3 point arc that sits several feet father back. You see, in the NBA the arc is 23'9" from the hoop (22' on the baseline) in college it is 19'9". That's right, for those of you keeping track at home, that means the college "men" shoot from 4 feet closer than the NBA. Which means Earl Boykins could lie down head to tow in between the two arcs and that the college guys can't shoot from as far as the ladies of the WNBA. This would kill them. They'd be getting shot clock violations on every other play and since the college game relies entirely on unskilled shooters chucking as many 3s as possible, they'd actually have to play in the paint occasionally. So that farther line is not inconsequential. If it goes the other way and they play on the college court with the 35 second shot clock and the 3 point arc less than 20 feet from the basket, the Bucks would hit no less than 50 three pointers, while eating the clock, and potentially thrashing the Gators even worse.
God damn it! This painfully ignorant article is giving me a damn ulcer. I could write a hundred more pages on this subject, but let me just put it this way, there is a clear and indisputable hierarchy: High School Girls get beaten by College girls who get beaten by High School boys, who get beaten by WNBA women, who get beaten by College boys, who get undeniably dominated in every sense of the word by NBA players (the only lack of clarity comes with EuroLeague, which is slowly starting to prove it can compete on the NBA level). You see the delineation? It's all boys girls, and women until you get to the NBA. There are no men, only players. If a woman could play on the level of NBA players, she would be counted not as a woman, but as a player. And if she was on the Bucks, she would join in the absolute and unabashed extermination of the Florida Gators.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Mark Cuban: Badass or just ass?

"I couldn’t deal with the NBA," Cuban said. "There was things that I couldn’t imagine happening in the Finals that happened in the Finals. You don’t even know a tenth of it – stuff I didn’t get fined for and that was just too outrageous for me to even say publicly. And so I was like, ‘I’m done.'"

I'd like to coin the phrase "Cubanized" and use it describe situations where your boss thinks you and he/she have an unspoken understanding, and then you just air the dirty laundry in front of the customers. For instance; your boss lets you get away with spending half your day cruising the Internet, thinking to himself that you will then not dare point out his subscription to www.fatasshoeswithtoysandjello.com, in return. You proceed to announce at the front desk, that your boss has a fascination with hoes, who have large butts and own toys covered in Jello. Your customers book for the exit with no delay, and your boss looks at you like, "WTF dude? I thought we were homeys." That is essentially what Cuban has done to Stern here. And Stern, not being able to fire Cuban, has 2 choices: 1)fine him a shit ton of loot, or 2)let it slide, but remember it for the next time Cuban needs a favor. Fining him means nothing, because he has more money than Cresus, and doing that just draws more attention to what amounts to the equivalent of 9/11 "truthers" spouting whatever ridonkulous thing pops into their imagination. So I'd have to imagine Sterny's gonna let this one slide. As for the question of the day? I'm starting to think Cuban is pretty badass...

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Reggie Miller: Spending too Much Time with Scottie Pippen?

First Pip, now Reggie's caught the un-retire bug(from the Dallas Morning News):

No way of knowing how serious it is yet, but Reggie Miller could be a candidate for the Mavericks' vacant roster spot.
Owner Mark Cuban brought up Miller's name before Monday's game against the Hawks. The former Indiana Pacers star is the No. 1 3-point shooter in NBA history. He retired after the 2004-05 season, but remains in excellent physical shape.


This one doesn't surprise me as much as Pippen's hair brained scheme for a number of reasons: 1) Miller played more recently, in fact, he's only been out of the league a year and a half. 2) Miller wasn't really washed up at the time of his retirement. Dude did 15 pts, and a couple of 3s a night in his last season. 3) Miller seems clear on his capabilities and role: step up, knock down open 3s, provide leadership for Howard and Harris, hustle on back to the bench. Pippen thinks he'll be running the point, logging serious minutes, etc. Dream a little dream. My only question is how Miller can ever respect Avery Johnson, a guy who's only like 3 months older than him, and a guy whom he once (probably) referred to as a hobbit (midget, dwarf, pixie, elf, asshole) when they were playing against each other.