Category: Basketball
Thursday Links
It’s not every day that I get to start off a post talking about whale penis. Apparently, someone thinks it’s comfortable.
Some analysis of the unheralded Saints offensive line.
Brett Favre – Tecmo Bowl Hero
It turns out that yes, NBA players gamble during games. And some of them don’t want to pay up.
How The Roots became Jimmy Fallon’s house band:
We called him back, but it was a crazy Mexican stand off. We said, “OK, we’ll consider it,” but he thought we were bluffing, then of course we thought he was bluffing. It took about three weeks for everyone to put their guns down and take each other seriously because time was ticking. He needed to get a band, and we had three weeks to convince each other we were serious and finally put our guns down and be serious about it.
Matt Taibbi is one of my favorite writers. This is too funny to be made up:
…apologize for the long absence, have been on some other stuff. Among other things dealing with a lot of disgruntled Cleveland Browns fans who are pissed that I compared Eric Mangini to Augustus Gloop, the pudgy kid who was drinking from the chocolate river without permission in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I thought Browns fans would find this funny, but apparently not. I got one letter from someone who expressed the feeling that if I were ever to have kids, he hoped “they would be born with Achondroplasia.” So I’m sitting there scratching my head, wondering what Achondroplasia is, and right on cue, two minutes later, he sends me a link to an X-ray picture of someone with the disease. I have to admit, I burst out laughing when I saw the picture — not because the disease is funny (it isn’t, not at all), but just because someone was feeling so crappy about their football team that they felt compelled to dig that horrifying thing up to send to some writer bashing their team. I mean, I totally understand the guy.
Wade Phillips – Overcommunicator
Patrick Crayton is willing to say what the Dallas Cowboys coaches wouldn’t: He’s been replaced in the starting lineup by Miles Austin.
Crayton just wishes somebody would have told him that. He figured it out Monday, when Austin worked opposite Roy Williams in two-wide receiver sets.
Awesomeness from Chuck Klosterman. Think about this the next time Ron Jaworski starts bashing the wildcat. Read the whole thing:
Whenever an innovation fails to result in a title, its unorthodoxy takes the hit; every time a football coach tries something unorthodox, he is blasted for not playing “the right way.” But all that “not playing the right way” means is that a coach is ignoring the eternal lie of football: the myth that everything done in the past is better than anything that could be invented in the present. As a result, the public arm of football — the conservative arm — bashes innovation immediately, even while adopting the principles it attacks. The innovators are ridiculed. And that kind of reaction is reassuring to fans, because it makes us feel like football is still the same game we always want to remember. It has a continuity of purpose. It symbolizes the same ideals and appeals to the same kind of person. It feels conservative, but it acts liberal. Everything changes, but not really.
The 2009 Dodgers NLCS. Epic Fail in words and pictures.
Instructions for replicating the best burger ever.
This makes the Troy/FIU game look completely legitimate. There’s a video too.:
Here’s the setup — Going into the last day of the Maranhão State League second division season in Brazil yesterday, two clubs sat atop the league with the same number of points: Viana and Moto Club. On this decisive day, Viana hosted Chapadinha, a club they had a scoreless draw with the last time they played, and Moto Club took on Santa Quiteria. Both games were scheduled to take place at exactly the same time and both Viana and Moto needed a win to take the league title.
Everything went like normal until word reached Viana — who were up 2-0 on Chapadinha 35 minutes in the second half — heard that Moto Club were winning their match, too. Then things got a little fishy. And by that I mean Chapadinha players began to WALK OFF THE PITCH and as Viana proceeded to score nine goals in the final nine minutes of the match to win 11-0. A bit odd, no? I mean, watch the video above. It’s like watching someone play FIFA with the difficulty set to “special needs”.
Lastly, Mrs. Jose Lima is also better at the internet than you.
Thursday Links
It comes down to this: As a franchise, what do you aspire to be? If “world champion” is your answer, you cannot tolerate or coddle role players who botch bunts, run the bases poorly and miss signs or cutoff men — brainless mistakes that cost you runs, and games, especially against the monsters of the American League East.
Really cool old story on/by Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Grown ups screwing things up.
Fantastic breakdown of Ed Reed’s interception of Carson Palmer last week.
Antonio Pierce on playing the Raiders:
There was no vibe of trying or effort from the Raiders at all from a defensive standpoint against their offense. We’re getting three-and-outs. You don’t hear nobody [saying], ‘Hey, let’s go!’ trying to pick the guys up, rallying them, getting guys fired up. There was nothing. It was quiet. A guy gets sacked or somebody gets beat, they just get up. It’s not like there’s yelling or no kind of [emotion] about the way they were playing.
It was shocking to be out there in that game and get that kind of feeling.
Oakland is only getting two touchdowns at home to Philly on Sunday. There’s an argument that the bottom teams this year aren’t that bad. Try explaining that to this guy.
How smart bettors are identified. “It’s not the amount that usually moves a line, but rather the ‘face’ behind the action.”
Spanish soccer, fun for everyone:
This week, UEFA are reported to be investigating [Rayo Vallecano], along with Las Palmas, as their Round 41 league tie from the previous season is on the governing body’s 40 game, match-fixing dodgy list.
UEFA are basing their suspicions on these ties on irregular betting patterns….
The match itself came at the tail end of the Spanish season and gave the Canary Islanders the point needed to survive in the Segunda A division and the Rayo goalkeeper the top stopper award.
Wednesday’s edition of Mundo Deportivo explains exactly what happened by reporting that “the game ended 0-0 with barely two shots on target and shouts of “friends forever” from the Las Palmas stands.”
If the investigation shows that match-fixing was involved in the affair then the punishment could be severe – in the “both squads spending the weekend with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading team” sense of the word.
Mundo Deportivo reports that any guilty party would receive no more than a three point deduction as a slap on the wrists.
And this is because sporting fraud isn’t a actually a crime in Spain.
Also fun is qualifying for the World Cup. The US scored with only 10-men in stoppage time to tie Costa Rica 2-2 last night and sent Honduras through in the process. The video has Honduran fans celebrating the miracle cover. Johnathan Bornstein – Honduran Hero.
Most entertaining coach ever
But certain people who have not supported me, and you know who you are, can keep sucking.
IGN is counting down the top 100 Nintendo games of all time.
Perhaps the most interesting tidbit of all about Duck Hunt, however, was the stand-alone product’s incredibly small size. The entire game fit on an infinitesimally small cartridge sized at 192 kilobits.
That’s smaller than the average excel files I deal with at work. You can play what’s sure to be ranked #1 (and the best video game ever) here.
Lastly, always remember that Chris Bosh is better at the internet than you.
Thursday Links
Real Madrid’s economic model looks unsustainable. Well, no shit. They don’t factor in bribing the government for hundreds of millions of dollars though. That usually doesn’t show up on the financial statements.
At least they haven’t been caught betting on their own games yet.
Anyone ever go to prison for the basketball games?
As the inaugural opponents for San Quentin’s over-40 squad, an element of the prison’s outreach program, we had received the following warnings before our first visit: stay bunched together at all times, give only first names and run only when on the court because, as hoops coordinator Stephen Irwin, told us, “Otherwise the guards will think you’re a prisoner making a break for it, and trust me, you don’t want that.”
Michael Crabtree’s contract explained in detail.
Rotoworld has a running player page for the Raiders offense.
And there are new details in the Cable-Hanson case.
Cable called the meeting to address Hanson’s dealings with the defensive backs. “The players are confused by you, Randy,” Cable allegedly told Hanson. He also reportedly told Hanson that he was being relegated to film work and would no longer be allowed to work directly with the defensive backs. “John Marshall says he has talked to you about this,” Cable told Hanson.
According to the Hanson’s statement, he turned to Marshall and said, ‘That’s a lie, John!” and Hanson insisted that Marshall had not previously mentioned anything about a communication problem with the defensive backs.
At that point, Hanson told police he was blindly body slammed by Cable into the wall behind Marshall with such force that he was thrown out of his chair and into a small table next to the wall. The table had a small lamp on it and both were overturned and broken in the scuffle.
According to Hanson’s account, the other coaches in the room began yelling, “Tom, what are you doing?” as Cable put his right hand against Hanson’s face and shoved his left cheek against the wall. Hanson told police he could feel his upper jaw being crushed into the wall.
The other coaches pulled Cable from Hanson, but an enraged Cable broke their grasp and attacked Hanson a second time, allegedly screaming, “I’m going to kill you!” over and over as he kept a hand around Hanson’s throat.
Hey there Trent Edwards!
Lastly, anyone can be cool, but awesome takes practice.
