Category Archives: NBA
Michael Beasley and Ryan Hollins ejected after altercation in last night’s game
Michael Beasley has made a few questionable decisions over the years. Nearly 60% of his shots, a myriad of hairstyles, when he got caught with marijuana at the NBA’s rookie symposium and tried to hide it by flushing it down the toilet and pretending it never existed…I’m sure you get the point. Last night, Beasley was ejected from the game against the Los Angeles Clippers, and while an ejection is almost always a questionable decision, there was nothing to be questioned here. I believe it was completely necessary and worthy of respect.
What exactly is on Ryan Hollins’ mind? Was he waiting for Dragic to tap out? He is holding the Suns point guard hostage in a headlock for no apparent reason in front of the Phoenix bench with Jermaine ‘I Almost Put a Fan in a 50-Year Coma‘ O’Neal directly beside him. Does he understand what that man is capable of? Luckily for Hollins, O’Neal only chose to peel his body off of Dragic, who he continued to hold in a chokehold in front of referees for almost a minute. Lamar Odom then tried to drag the Clippers bench warmer away from the action, but not before he squared up on Michael Beasley, who came over and shoved him in defense of his teammate. The two would have come to blows if it weren’t for Odom continuing to drag Hollins away from the situation and Matt Barnes (wait…really?) calming down Beasley, although both players were inevitably ejected after referees reviewed the whole fiasco.
“He choked Gogi,” Beasley said of Hollins’ foul on Dragic. “These guys in this locker room are my family. They’re my brothers. You’re not going to choke my brother and sit there and smile about it. I feel like the only reason he did that was because it was Gogi. He’s bigger than Gogi. I’d do it a million times. I’d do it for anyone in this locker room. That’s not right to do anybody. You want to pick on somebody. I got a 7-footer to my right (O’Neal) that likes that kind of stuff. Don’t pick on our smallest guys and then to put him in a headlock and hold it for five minutes? I just wanted to get him off Gogi and he threw his fists up at me. That’s when the situation got heated.”
Nobody chokes Gogi. Am I the only one who thinks Gogi sounds like a small dog that Paris Hilton would carry around in a handbag? Regardless, I’m not condoning a fight by any means, but when your teammate — a small teammate who wants no business being held in a rear naked choke — is being disrespected, you have to defend him. Thumbs up for you Michael Beasley, but two thumbs down for you, Ryan Hollins. I genuinely have no idea what could have been on his mind, which is why I loved to see Lamar Odom and Jamal Crawford (an NBA player suffering from realness, as Kanye West might say) immediately getting in Hollins’ face and giving him that ‘WTF are you doing?’ face. Apparently Hollins never got the memo that they play on a rectangular surface and not inside an octagon. Joe Rogan is not doing any commentating at Phoenix Suns/Los Angeles Clippers games.
(via AZ Central)
Yahoo reports Javaris Crittenton’s murder indictment…with a picture of Trevor Ariza
When you’re reporting about an ex-NBA player being indicted on murder charges, it might be a good idea to, I don’t know, post a picture of that actual player and not one who is currently still playing. I know practically no one will have looked at the Yahoo! homepage, seen Trevor Ariza and been like “OMG TREVOR ARIZA MURDERED SOMEONE?!!!/!??!11!!” but regardless, c’mon son. It’s not that difficult to fire up a search engine and find a picture of someone with even marginal fame. I’ll even walk you through it, Yahoo:
1. There should be a rectangular white space near the top of your web browser containing a bunch of letters mixed together to form something that is called ‘a URL’. It usually ends in .com, but sometimes things get a little crazy and you might see a .net or a .org. Don’t be discouraged, you can do this. Anyway, this is called ‘the address bar’. Use your fingers located on your hands to click on the address bar with your mouse and type in “www.google.com”. No Yahoo, we are not using the Yahoo search engine because nobody uses that shit. I’ll use Ask Jeeves before I search for something on Yahoo.
2. When ‘www.google.com’ finishes loading (it may take awhile, you’re probably using dial-up), you should notice another rectangular white space with room to type in located in the center of the page directly under a brightly colored Google logo. If it’s a holiday, this logo may even be a little more festive, don’t let this throw you off. Continue towards the rectangular white space with room to type in and again use your fingers to click this space with your mouse. Now type in whatever you are searching for, so in this case, we are going to type ‘Javaris Crittenton’.
3. Golly! Look at all these options! But we’re looking for an image not a webpage, so proceed to click ‘Images’ located beside ‘Web’ towards the top of your page. It should be directly under ‘Javaris Crittenton’, which if you had forgotten already, is what we searched about 3 seconds ago.
4. Wow, would you look at that? There are dozens of pictures of Javaris Crittenton on the first page and NONE of them are Trevor Ariza! I don’t know if I can even handle this wealth of information!
No need to thank me Yahoo, I’m just a good dude trying to make the world a better place.
Barack Obama shoots 2 for 22 in front of members of the Washington Wizards
President Barack Obama held a basketball clinic at the White House on Easter Sunday featuring Washington Wizards John Wall, Nene, Emeka Okafor, and Bradley Beal. I’m sure the event went smoothly, that is, until Obama decided to show off his lefty stroke and let everyone know, “I’ve gotta hit one shot before I go.”
As the bystander filming this fiasco so eloquently puts it multiple times: brick house. You could stimulate the economy and eliminate the housing crisis with all of of those bricks (does this joke even make sense?). Embarrassed to watch their POTUS shoot worse than Dick Cheney with a rifle in the forest, the Wizards chimed in:
Bradley Beal:
“He missed a lot in a row. We told him move in a little bit. Then he ended up missing a layup and it got out of control,” Beal said. “He has a few excuses he could use. I think he was warming up to at least sprinkle one in. I don’t know.”
Not only did he miss the layup, but he missed the rim on the layup. So I guess you could say things got out of control. Our country is in shambles, Obama can’t hit the rim on a layup.
John Wall:
“I told him ‘I’m on a hot stretch this month,’ ” Wall said. “I said you was shooting like I was shooting the first month I came back. He kept saying I’m going to leave for like five minutes, 10 minutes. He didn’t leave until he made one.”
Things are going horribly, horribly wrong when John Wall is critiquing you on your jump shot.
Nene:
Nene and Okafor, the seasoned veterans, were more diplomatic in their assessment of the president’s errant shooting. “People get nervous in that moment, because it was a lot of pressure,” Nene said, “but the message is, never quit. Never quit. He made the last shot. Took a while, but he made the shot.”
Never quit, guys. When you’re currently shooting 0 for 17 with nobody guarding you in front of hundreds of little kids and popular NBA players, just never quit.
Emeka Okafor:
Okafor, who stood calmly with his arm behind his back, cut the president some slack based on his wardrobe and weather. “He missed more than he made, but it was cold,” Okafor said. “He had some casual shoes on, a long sleeve shirt and some khakis, so he wasn’t really in his proper attire to get in game mode.”
Cold weather, long sleeve shirt, khakis…all very viable excuses for nearly airballing a layup. Why do you think NBA games are indoors? Cold weather. Why do you think NBA players wear jerseys? So they don’t have to wear long sleeve shirts. Why do NBA players wear shorts? So they don’t have to wear khakis. It’s all starting to make sense now.
(via Washington Post)
Jamaal Tinsley throws an alley-oop to Jeremy Evans…while he’s at the three-point line
Jeremy Evans seems like a good dude. Maybe I’m just empathetic towards him because I appreciate his ability to paint still lifes, landscapes and portraits (and jump over them) or for the braces he was rocking during the 2012 dunk contest. But unfortunately for Evans, he faces the unfortunate fate of attempting to avoid the same obscurity that has claimed other notable high-flyers from weak dunk contests of the past like Fred Jones and Jamario Moon. So when I see Evans making a highlight play in his extremely limited playing time (about 6.2 minutes per game), I can’t help but feel all happy and tingly inside.
If you would be so kind as to pause the video at the 0:06 mark…I have a few things I would like to point out.
1. Jamaal Tinsley is an able-bodied NBA roleplayer running point guard for a team vying for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference. All of this at the ripe old age of 57! (give or take)
2. Take a look at where Jeremy Evans (bottom of the screen) is located on the court as Tinsley is about to release the alley-oop. That’s almost the Stephon Marbury Zone, or for those who don’t know, a spot deep behind the three-point line where Stephon Marbury would feel the need to dribble to and launch an ill-advised three ball that would either: a) miss horribly, or b) swish perfectly. There are no other options, I have done extensive research.
3. You can press play now. This is just an awesome play all-around.
4. THREE DEGREES OF SEPARATION BETWEEN JAMAAL TINSLEY AND JEREMY EVANS FEATURING FRED JONES: Jamaal Tinsley was a member of the 2004-05 Indiana Pacers, most famous for the ‘Malice at the Palace’ brawl. Fred Jones was also a member of that same 2004-05 Indiana Pacers team, garnering fame for being the only Pacers player to actually get punched in the head by a fan in the crowd that terrible night (sorry Fred…). That is, until Stephen Jackson AKA Stak 5 the Hood King saved the day. Fred Jones was the 2004 Slam Dunk champion. Jeremy Evans was the 2012 Slam Dunk champion. Jeremy Evans currently plays for the Utah Jazz. Jamaal Tinsley currently plays for the Utah Jazz. BOOM.
With a 112-102 win over the Portland Trailblazers, the Jazz have extended their lead over the Lakers for the 8-seed in the Western Conference by 1/2 a game. The Jazz own the tiebreaker over the Lakers, so they would get the playoff nod over Los Angeles should they have identical records at the end of the season. Jamaal Tinsley had 5 assists in 19 minutes off the bench, one of which was to Jeremy Evans for his only score of the game in just 3 minutes of play.
Kyle O’Quinn has a picture of Nik Vucevic’s girlfriend in his locker
Kyle O'Quinn is hilarious. He taped a picture of Nik Vucevic's girlfriend in his locker. He wants to see how long it takes Nik to notice.
—
Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) April 01, 2013A few important things about this:
1. Pics or it didn’t happen.
2. Good to see the Magic keeping themselves in good spirits after such a dismal season.
3. Pics or it didn’t happen.
So I have taken it upon myself to scour through the darkest reaches of the internet and find a picture of Nikola Vucevic’s said girlfriend. Basically, I googled “nikola vucevic girlfriend”. You know when you’re searching a random athlete/celebrity/person of interest and as you’re about to finish typing their name, one of the top searches is their name followed by ‘girlfriend’ and you wonder who the hell would be trying to find out who their girlfriend is? Yeah, I’m that guy right now. Obviously my first step is to search google images, where the first page yields the following results: A blonde Sixers dancer in a bikini that turns out to be a random image on a page with nothing to do with Nikola Vucevic (not his girlfriend), this girl who is apparently a college soccer player and Jrue Holiday’s girlfriend (not his girlfriend), Victoria’s Secret model Adriana Lima (not his girlfriend…but somehow is Marko Jaric’s wife?), and a girl named Claire who is/was the girlfriend of Vucevic’s USC teammate Aaron Fuller (not his girlfriend).
Well, that was a massive fail. But seeing Adriana Lima made me realize that these basketball players of Eastern European descent can apparently pull chicks that are way out of their league, even if they are professional athletes. Just look at Marko Jaric. LOOK AT HIM. NOW LOOK AT HER AGAIN. NOW LOOK AT HIM SOME MORE. He’s not even batting out of his league…he’s a 5 year-old picking dandelions in the outfield during tee-ball and she is Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays merged together to form an almagamation of supreme hotness. NOTHING ABOUT IT MAKES ANY SENSE. So yeah…Marko Jaric is my only example, but the case is so strong that I have faith in Nikola Vucevic’s amour being a hottie herself, and I must find her.
A regular google search of “nikola vucevic girlfriend” leads me to this page:
“Discussion forum for Nikola Vucevic’s girlfriend. Does Nikola Vucevic have a girlfriend? Is he dating someone? Is he married? Would you date him? Did you date him? Please leave a comment.”
YES.
Comment #1: “I would date him is he is so hot” by Anonymous, February 5th, 2013.
Good to know, Anonymous. THAT HELPS NO ONE.
Comment #2: “Yes he does it’s Sasha Pavlovic sister” by Anonymous, March 26th, 2013.
My mind…is blown. Sasha Pavlovic’s…sister? Such a recent comment, could this be Kyle O’Quinn himself trying to throw me off the trail? This revelation inspires a new google search: “sasha pavlovic sister”. I could be close…so close I can taste it…but an image suddenly enters my mind:
No, not Sasha Pavlovic as a rastafarian with dyed blonde hair, but his sister. This could be a horrifying experience and I will go no further. Nik Vucevic, if your girlfriend is truly hot, the world will know. This is the internet we’re talking about here.
Jose Calderon balls out in his return to Toronto, but briefly forgets what team he plays for
It’s always nice to see a player return to his former stomping grounds and get showered with praise and applause rather than the usual boos and vitriol. I guess that’s what happens when you leave a team gracefully instead of leaving after you create an endless media shit-storm for months on end coughDwightHowardcough or forcefully demand a trade because you’re looking to be in a bigger market coughCarmeloAnthonycough. Tonight Jose Calderon returned to the Air Canada Center in Toronto for the first time since he was traded to Detroit as a part of the Rudy Gay deal and received both a standing ovation and a video tribute on the big screen. People tend to forget that Calderon played the first 7 1/2 years of his NBA career in Toronto with some success, including two playoff appearances in 2006-07 and 2007-08, a 90-50-40 season in 2007-08**, and the all-time single season record for free throw percentage in 2008-09 (98.1%). The reception by the Toronto fans was completely warranted.
** Kevin Durant currently has a realistic chance of a 90-50-40 season, which is when a player shoots at least 90% from the free throw line, 50% from the field, and 40% from three for a single season. Because of this, it’s frequently mentioned by basketball writers and commentators that the only players to ever have done this are Larry Bird (twice), Mark Price, Reggie Miller, Steve Nash (four times), and Dirk Nowitzki. Jose Calderon technically had a 90-50-40 season in 2007-08 as I mentioned before, but fell 16 free throws short of officially qualifying for the honors. Unfortunately, Calderon shot 49.7% from the field in 2008-09 and missed out on the honors once more by mere percentage points, as apparently the NBA is not an elementary school math teacher and rounding up decimals is frowned upon. Well, this is a serious rant. /cool story bro
The most memorable moment of Calderon’s return happened after the second quarter ended when the two teams entered their respective locker rooms for halftime. Apparently the tunnel of the Air Canada Center seemed all-too-familiar, as Calderon started to enter the locker room with his former team instead of with the visiting Pistons. His reaction to it is great, but his reaction after realizing that it was caught on film is even better. Having walked into the completely wrong class room more than once before, I think I can sympathize with Calderon. All you can do is just casually pretend you’re texting, walk out of the class, run as fast as you can to get off-campus, and skip all of your classes for the next week in hopes of not being recognized by anyone within a 10-mile radius — I mean, or laugh it off. That works. Good job, Jose.
Kevin Durant visited the Louisville Cardinals women’s team in the locker room after their win over Baylor
The Louisville Cardinals women’s team had a special guest in the locker room after they pulled off a miraculous upset against Brittney Griner and the Baylor Bears, ruining nearly all seven of the world’s NCAA Women’s Tournament brackets. Kevin Durant showed up to congratulate the Lady Cardinals on their victory, and in the midst of several phones being ripped out of pockets to snap future profile pictures, KD’s buddy was accidentally punched by a Louisville player trying to throw her arms around the Oklahoma City Thunder star player. I’m not sure what would hurt more, that dude’s jaw after being punched by one of the Louisville players, or Hasheem Thabeet and Jeremy Lamb’s pride after being completely neglected in the background like they were Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick watching Justin Timberlake sign autographs.
Steve Novak forced to wear Cuse gear after losing a bet to Carmelo Anthony
It looks like Melo and Novak made a little wager on the Syracuse-Marquette game, a match-up of their respective alma maters. In the quintessential game explaining why I prefer the NBA over college, Syracuse dominated Marquette 55-39 with their staunch zone defense that led to 40 minutes of watching missed open jump shots that nearly lulled me to sleep. Fun. Maybe I’m just bitter because my bracket has been in shambles since the opening weekend and Marquette completely smacked my Miami Hurricanes and then decided to show up to the Elite 8 and play like a middle school CYO team, but I digress. As a result of Marquette’s loss, Steve Novak was forced to rock some Cuse garb on the team plane at the behest of Carmelo Anthony. This wasn’t the first March Madness-related bet that Melo has won though. After Cuse knocked out Mike Woodson’s Indiana Hoosiers in the Sweet 16, the Knicks head coach was and forced to carry an orange around with him during interviews the next day. Maybe Michigan Fab 5 alum and former Knick Jalen Rose can get in on all of this action when Cuse faces off with the Wolverines this weekend in the Final Four.
(via Instagram)
