WEST

LAKERS’ Color Schemed Honda Element vs. NUGGETS’ Video Game Chair

First all, the Honda Element is the shittiest looking vehicle to have ever vehicled. But I mean, having it yellow does add a little something to it… like as if they were paying tribute to the Beatles. However, on the flip side, the Nuggets soft XBOX approved video gamey chair is just what’s needed when the team gets swept and homers need something to do. LAKERS IN 4.

MAVERICKS’ Potato Head vs. HORNETS’ TV Monitor

Well, the Mavs have a disadvantage here since Mr. Potato face’s toy is the norm for every all the teams. And yet, I can’t let go of the Hornet’s TV having half a basketball for an ass. But, I do love watching TV. HORNETS IN 6.

SPURS’ watch key vs. SUNS’ Girl Bear Cheerleader

Time… that’s all we’re ever worth. And the Spurs don’t have it anymore. And the girly Suns toy is just “bear-ly” legal. AH AHA HAHA HA. SUNS in 6.

JAZZ’s 80s colored Monster Truck vs. ROCKETS’ Cup

Jazz suck. Go McGrady. ROCKETS in 9.

EAST

CELTICS’s Haley vs. HAWKS’ Briana in Movie Tastes

Haley says she likes Elf and Pride and Prejudice while Bri is all about the Judd Apatow: Knocked Up, Superbad and Wedding Crashers for good measure. Look Haley, you can like Elf, you can like Pride and Prejudice, but you CANNOT have them both on your bio. HAWKS IN 7.

WIZARD’s Briana vs. CAVALIERS’ ?? in Interesting Facts

Briana loves math and the Cavs can’t even get someone to put a name to their dancers = FACT: Zards in 5

RAPTORS’ Nikki vs. MAGIC’s Lacey in Favorite TV Show

Nikki likes The Hills and Now & Then while Lacey likes King of Queens. Oh fuck this series is going to suck. PUSH

PISTONS’ Chelsea vs. SIXERS’ Amber in Quotes

C. is all about “Pick your battles wisely” while Ambz believes “It’s not luck… it’s talent. Luck is when talent meets opportunity.” So, obviously this resonates with their breakthrough team… thus… Sixer in—ah who am I kidding, Pistons in 2 and a half. Yeah, they’ll make the 76ers forfeit.

…and honest to Pope Benedict, yes I feel a bit pervy. But deep down, don’t we all?

The golden locks of Siegfried Illustration: TheHype

But let us examine the importance of the clutch, especially with a standard vehicle: it’s very important. I can’t stress this enough: the car can’t even move if there’s no clutch. Please find a your dealership as you as you see that a clutch is missing, cause that ain’t right.

I’m going to the Western Conference in a 58 team deal (yes! there are 58 teams in the Western Conference! What, you never heard of the expansion team: the Winnipeg Wheat Fields?) whereby half the teams give up 13 years of consecutive draft picks and expiring contracts that lands me to the Los Angeles Clippers.

I’ll be 61 in March, but the Clippers feel that we can WIN NOW. So what the hay, let’s do it!

Kidd traded to Dallas in latest blockbuster deal [Yahoo!]

Anyway, in one of the few Blogmaverick posts about the Mavs, there’s a free t-shirt giveaway in support for the troops. That got me thinking: isn’t Green and Blue the ugliest combination put together? Blue and green by itself are fine, but together they are the Sea Creature to purple’s Frankenstein.

Just how do you define the road to the Finals? By the number of times teams been there before? By the pedigree of its coaches, future Hall of Fame players, or intrepid trainers? The only way to truly determine whether or a team is destined to have a date with Ms. Finals is today’s Word:

Lucky Charms. Let’s face it folks, 4 of the the 7 teams in Section 2 has some serious horseshoes up the anus. All thanks to the spry GM skillz that were able to land a group of winners. For those bemoaning the fact that the Celtics tanked last season and didn’t even try to hide, take a look at the Spurs modern era dominance — they tanked to get Tim Duncan.The Heat and the Pistons would seem to have more a legit rep seeing that they worked their way up year after year trying to get off road blocks. The Heat have practically done nothing this past season and from an outsider’s point of view, yet there is a hint of optimism with them. The Pistons resigned their show running Bbbbillups and maybe his dabble with the Team USA can get his swag back for another run with mo-town. The Nuggets are the odd man out in this Section outfit, since every year in the playoffs, they keep meeting the same fate:

They keep getting bounced in the playoffs by a team that is better than them in every way. While the Nets, you can say, suffer the same undesirable outcome every spring, theirs isn’t as inevitable as the Nuggets would seem. You see, New Jersey looks and feels like that 2002-2004 team that went to the Finals back to back (thank god Jason Kidd is still there) because seemingly out of nowhere, they can dominate any team with their trifecta of Kidd, Carter and Jefferson. But alas, they always run out of steam when it really counts.

It’s a surprise to have the Rockettes in this group because like the Nuggets, they cannot get over the hump. They’re far superior in the regular season, but when it comes to the playoffs, injuries keep this team from being at their top condition. However, those are excuses, there is no way this team shouldn’t make it out of the SECOND round this year. Yao, Mac, Scola, c’mon guys, what is this, a charity?

It’s fine time to not make any ultimatums (ya hear T-Mac) and do what you do. Stop thinking of the past. Move on (.org) and just like the Mavericks two years ago defeated their big brother Spurs, so can the Rockets rework their usual playoff losery ways and finally bust out.Finally, speaking of busting out, the luck is running smooth for one KGarnett, playing with the highest spirits in preseason games aboard thinking he has the best basketball resurrection now. He does. And though it was a wild chance that he finally landed in Boston with two other future HoFs, it’s is own doing that will ascend him and his team to contend for his first title.

And that’s the word

It begins henceforth — NBA SECTION 1 (consisting of the following teams: Raptors, Mavs, Hawks, Bulls, Magic, Warriors, Timberwolves and Suns) :

You know, one of the things that I can’t stand are teams that have no identity and weak toothpicks.

Why? Because every time you use that damn toothpick, it breaks. Argh! Oh yeah, no identity teams, right. Which brings us to today’s Word: The ReBorn Identity. Yes. Finally it looks like the axis of mediocre evil is finally taking a halt as teams in SECTION 1 have a new definition for themselves. You’ve got the team just needling the mass love in the Raptors poised to show off their free flowing style that is exciting to watch for all the reasons you’d like playing pick up basketball — everyone contributes. The Hawks and Magic will undoubtedly use their collective snub from playoff land and shared experience of losing to be a team that will not win from “surprising” you, but will win because they can. It’s like this, once you lose as bad as you have like them for the past 4-5 years, there’s only one way to go.

Up. So stick with those teams this year, if for no other reason than they need a few more fans. Now speaking of up, the Suns and Mavs are in the mortal lock for total cancellation of each other. While they have re-made their image in the last 5 years to contending squads, there is still a lot to be answered for in terms to truly bypassing the rock solid Spurs. For one thing, Mavs getting shook could be a good thing, using it to fuel their hunger. For the Suns, it doesn’t seem like they ever want to go away from the “we are truly good, we just need that liiiiiiittle alignment in the universe and we’ll be in the Finals.” Now look, the Suns are the team to root for, but there’s just always this little obstacle…

…this little obstacle called “closing”. They just can’t seal the deal, and it pains me to face this truth whenever they face an uphill battle (Game 3 in San Antonio notwithstanding). The same query faces the young guns that keep making playoff appearances that only serve to embarrass their yearly inexperience at score. IF YOU DON’T KNOW BY NOW, I’M TALKIN’ BOUT CHI-TOWN. Whereas with with the T-Wolves and Warriors, all is skyrocketing and they are taking off in flight without ever looking back

Shut it Bullet! These two teams have more in common than they would like to believe. Renewed energy and new blood to mark a sea of change to not give a shit about what happened last season. The only sadness is the absence of Jason Richardson where he embodied the free spirit of sweet release on every dunk. Juwan Howard feels his pain.

By having a new identity is like having a new movie role. You take the old bad experience and check in with a completely new one. And that’s The Word.

I didn’t watch it, because I have no electricity. Ever. But good for us, the fellows over at Awful Announcing pranced to the video first and gives the world clearly what we were never waiting for

(though honestly: Mark’s awesome in this…)

Dude, Mark, first: yay! for a post on your spot finally talking about the NBA. I love the tech/biz talk as much as any self-respecting geeksquad-blogger, but most of your jargon goes well over my tiny little head. Anyways, take this as a love letter for your newest entry man, just well said.

From Blog Maverick:

The past few weeks one of my former employees wanted to make a statement about our legal relationship and get his perspective covered in the media. No problem at all. The media people he spoke to asked me for a comment. I didnt give one. One media outlet wrote it as fact, then bloggers jumped in. The more bloggers jumped in covering what the other bloggers had to say about what the first bloggers said.

When I asked a local “reporter” why he was covering this when he only had one side and he knew i wasnt going to give a response, he said it was because his “editors thought it had become a national story”, I guess his bosses read blogs.. Then another media outlet, despite my no comment email response decided to take responses from months ago and present them in their story as if they were made in response to their current request. Nice.

I’m pretty sure he’s referring to this article to which was banana-blogged everywhere (see links). And I’ll admit too, that I fell into the lazy reader mode without carefully reading the the insinuations rather than accept it as simply as “sure, that sounds like a fact”. Sorry, my bad dude, at least I didn’t blog about it!

Cubes says that it’s a no-no on the media (and then subsequently blogs—where the media knew this is exactly the type of story that’d circulate) but I think us bloggers/readers need to be a bit more careful too … since it seems like the same o’l topics gets the most hit on and commented on based solely on heresy. He does backtalk blogs a bit, but I think it’s outta love (cue The More You Know awww) and hope that we need to be a bit better.

That said. If you are indeed suing Nellie for that freaking crazy thing about him knowing your team, then, yes, you are crazy. But yeah, props for making point, guy.

Blogging’s impact on media credibility [Blog Maverick]
Is Mavs owner now crying foul? [Star-Telegram]
Ballhype Story Tracking [Ballhype]

“What is he doing?” C’mon tell me that isn’t so Napoleon Dynamite-esque. But true that, what was he doing (mind you, Steven Hunter was on that PHX clip… meaning this was like 3 years ago…)