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Kobe Bryant is good at basketball

by The Cavalier on October 31, 2007 · 8 comments

David Stern

Well, we watched the entire festival of opening night, and it was somewhat comforting to have the NBA back.

We still love the game, and remain open to allowing the league abuse us once again. Tonight’s Cavs-Mavs matchup will be quite the telling experience.

Anyway, the most interesting thing about last night’s games was obviously Kobe Bryant – the Laker crowd booed him during pregame introductions, and despite scoring 45 points in the loss to the Rockets, Phil Jackson got all critical after the game.

“He got tired out there,” Jackson said. “I had to talk to him a little bit about hitting the open guy and not crashing in there as often as he did. I thought there was a lot of times when his competitive zeal brought him in there hell or high water, and he didn’t get the call, and as a consequence there were some things that happened that turned into layups for them or easy run-outs for them.”

Anyone else get the feeling Phil is trying to run Kobe out of town?

He’s been lobbing some jabs at him for the past week, and said in no uncertain terms he wanted the franchise to make a decision on Kobe moving or staying asap.

Not coming out and explicitly asking to keep him is quite telling (Just like Mavs-Cavs!) if you ask us.

Add in the boos, and we think by 3:00 lasterday afternoon, Bryant is gone. Gone like a player who got traded to another team.

On another note entirely, the Spurs continue to be the most boring team in the world of sports. They handed out their championship rings before the game, and the order went something like, Random Guy, Random Guy, Jacque Vaughn, Tim Duncan, Francisco Elson, Random Guy.

Tim Duncan gets his just like in the middle of bench dudes? Can you imagine Cleveland doing this and not saving LeBron to the end? Setting aside the ridiculousness of Cleveland ever winning a title in any sport, that’s just basic dramatic style.

We understand that’s all part of their “we’re a team” stylings, but give your fans at least one moment, in one night to maximize their cheering build-up.

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The Kings have the malaise

by The Cavalier on October 24, 2007 · 10 comments

We’ve gotten a healthy response to The Abandonment of NBA League Pass of 07-08 issue – most of which were from fellow Cavaliers fans.

Whether this is representative of the readership being mostly CLE fans, or that in general it’s just Cavaliers fans that are bored, we have no idea.

(Boney did say that he’s not getting it, but as usual he seems to have convoluted the point in ways we can quite unravel.)

We did hear from on Kings fan who’s checking out – here is Gabe’s reasoning.

I’m also ditching the league pass for the first time in 3 years due to my team (Sac Kings) sucking ass and showing the general type of malaise that makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a potato peeler.

Luckily I’m a Portland native and can hop on the Blazers band wagon since we get all the local games on Comcast Sports Net. At least that team’s not lazy and overpaid. Much less lazy and overpaid since Zach Randolph went to NY. Another added benefit is that our strip clubs are much safer now, I don’t have to worry about Z-bo’s brother shooting me in the parking lot. So I’ve also got that going for me. Which is pretty sweet.

That there is some worthy reasoning, and the use of the word “malaise” parallels our own feelings, as you know.

Speaking of the malaise-filled Cavaliers, Brian Windhorst reports that they actually look pretty decent, despite still missing key rotationing people Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao.

It seems they’re buckling down and taking an “us against those greedy foreign free agents” attitude. It remains to be seen whether the team can successfully stand around not doing anything on offense without them, but the spirit is encouraging.

‘We get paid to win games, and that’s what we have to do,” [Coach Mike] said. ”There’s nobody that’s going to come through the door that is going to save our behinds; the only way is by looking in the mirror and getting it done ourselves.”

Sasha and Andy aren’t quite McHale/Bird/Parish, and there’s really no reason to make that comparison. We just wanted to bring up the City of Boston again, so that we can remind you how much it irritates us.

The Mamba director called the other day and chided us mildly for not calling to congratulate him after the Game 7 City of Boston Red Socks win over the Indians.

“Why would we congratulate you?” said us.

“I would’ve called you,” said he.

“I’m gonna kill you, just like I killed that stupid snake.”

(There was a long pause here, because our tone there was pretty serious and menacing.)

“Are you being for real?”

Then we hung up – it was awesome.

Anyway, thanks to the couple of you who emailed to ask if we’re doing okay with all the fires here in Southern California. Mild burns on our right leg when our bed caught on fire lasterday afternoon, and a small (what we guess is a) singe mark on the back of our head from when the backseat of the car lit up – other than that, we’re good.

On a final morning note, we make no apologies for being totally into this:

It’s not that we’re into killing people, or Burma, or anything like that – we’re into RAMBO killing people in Burma.

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Kobe Bryant must be angry

by The Cavalier on October 13, 2007 · 3 comments

Kobe Bryant

With Jerry Buss coming out and admitting the Lakers will trade Kobe Bryant if they can get a good deal for him, our favorite place on the internet to ridicule is all aflow with rumors, speculation, incomprehensible essays on all thing Kobe, and assorted delusional madness.

Yes, Lakersground DOT NET is alive this week, and the troops have reached a whole new level. Just a sampling:

-Kobe will be traded for Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison. Mm-hmm. We’re calling it right now – after Kobe is traded, the first thread on Lakersground will be something to the effect of “this is a secret agreement between Kobe and Jerry Buss for Kobe to re-sign as a free agent at a cheap price, giving LA the cap space it needs to build a contender”.

-It’s all some sort of dodge/jab/fake-out to get a better return for trading young center Andrew Bynum. (This would be the Andrew Bynum who isn’t even guaranteed to start on this Laker team. You know, the Laker team without a center?)

-This is all part of a long-term “master plan” to replace Kobe with OJ Mayo.

-Kobe is getting traded for Tracy McGrady, but not until February. (The source is “a guy I play video games with online who says his uncle works for the Rockets”.)

This last one is the best, and the title says it all.

If Kobe Is Traded, Do We Blow It Up?

Before we opened the thread we thought maybe there was finally a rational poster over there – someone intending to blow up the Staples Center if the Lakers trade Kobe. But no – he just thinks the Lakers are contenders.

Now, coming back to the title of this post – why would all of this make Kobe Bryant angry? Well, our contention is that what you’ve read above is generally how the Lakers front office works. In fact, we have a theory in place that Lakersground.net actually IS the Lakers front office.

Like Jimmy Buss and Mitch Kupchak and all the rest just hop on there and type away, while the rest of the NBA front offices (except Cleveland) actually DO SOMETHING.

Seriously, LA fans would be completely appeased with almost any trade. Anything. Get Bob Sura – they’ll find a way to describe him as key to a championship run…and that’s why we love them.

UPDATE: New thoughts up at LG – now the Lakers are just trying to create a buzz.

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David Stern is happy for BOS

by The Cavalier on September 12, 2007 · 21 comments

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest NBA storylines we’ll neglect to cover this season will be the KG-led Boston Celtics, with their duo of All-Stars, plus Paul Pierce.

Fortunately for you, there are other places where you can read about Danny Ainge’s Brain Typing Wunderkinds. Like Celticsblog (a blog about the Celtics), where we got the link to the next link from.

Yes, a reporter type of person from Boston spoke with David Stern about the new-look Celtics, and the man is optimistic.

“I’m always asked about New York, Chicago, LA, Boston,” said Stern in a phone interview yesterday. “Some are going to be up and some are going to be down. I really focus more on the fact that the Celtics fans have been very loyal and they deserve the Celtic team that has been put together.”

“It will be fun. Boston is a terrific basketball town. With the success of the Red Sox and Patriots, the Celtics have had a lot to contend with. And this will be good for them. It will also be good for the league.”

We were with his until the Red Sox and Patriots. Now we are sick.

We’re sure we’ve said this 800 times before, but we’ll repeat it. (This should make Boney happy – there’s nothing he likes more than when we do the same thing over and over.)

Boston fans are not tortured. They have NEVER been tortured. While the Sox suffered, your 16 NBA Championships were somewhat of a salve, and while the Celtics sucked, we’re pretty sure your 3 Super Bowl victories helped you get by.

As for the Celtics, we see good things ahead – 43 wins will feel great, and the first round exit (on the heels of Ray Allen’s busted heels) is so much better than what they’ve dealt with the past few years.

One other thing – if you think the Celtics wore green jerseys last year, you’re right. If you’re sitting there thinking they’re wearing them again this year, it looks like that is also true.

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Kobe Bryant is on video

by The Cavalier on June 18, 2007 · 10 comments

(This is where we would have a Photoshop of Kobe inside an Orange County strip mall gift shop, browsing Beanie Babies.)

The newest trend in NBA fandom/entrepreneurship seems to be “making your own underground Kobe Bryant controversy”.

To go along with the made-up rape book we covered the other day, a couple of mystery men in Orange County apparently snagged video of Kobe trashing Andrew Bynum and the Lakers in the parking lot of a sunny shopping center.

In the snippet the middle school kids filmmakers have let loose, Kobe uses things like the f-word, and also says to go buy your Bulls jerseys.

Go watch it here – beware swears uttered by NBA superstar!

Here are some more details on the scam independent film venture.

A private party has offered us $100,000 for the rights to this video. Unfortunately, this individual does not want this video to go public. We believe the public not only has a right to see this video but also has a desire to see this video. So we have decided make the video available to the public for ONLY $1.99. We believe that at this exceptionally low price everyone who wants to see the video will be able to see the video.

It is an exceptionally low price. In fact, we’ll pay it like, immediately, provided they send the video immediately OR they tell us exactly who the private party is, ie “admit you just want to make $100K no matter what”.

You say yourselves that in a YouTube age, it’s impossible this won’t get out. How hard would it be to leak it yourselves after you cash out?

How important is it that it gets out anyway? So Kobe went to Subway and said “f—”. Wow, we do that every day, only instead of Subway, it’s Quiznos, and instead of “f—”, it’s “Mmmm! This submarine sandwich is all the better because you have toasted the bread before serving it to me!”

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The Celtics are not cursed

by The Cavalier on May 23, 2007 · 50 comments

Since nobody is very interested in the Spurs going up 2-0 on the Jazz (even Jazz blogs are kinda like, “man, being here is neat.”), let’s get back to the NBA Draft Lottery’s stunning use of karmic energy.

Both of the teams most often accused of losing on purpose to gain a better draft position – the Celtics and the Grizzlies – dropped as low as they could last night. That’s a great stroke of luck for fans of the rest of the teams, who this morning are feeling zero sympathy for either franchise.

Most would tell you they got what they deserved, especially Boston, which was so blatant about their tanking that GM Danny Ainge all but admitted it when he extended Coach Doc after the season ended.

Others, primarily Bostonians like Bob Ryan, are whining about the Celtics being cursed, which is absurd.

Who did what to whom? Was it decided that 16 championships in 30 years was somehow unfair and obscene, and that enough was enough and the Celtics are never going to get another break again and that’s that?

Because that’s what it looks like. Nothing else can explain how the Celtics continue to suffer the wrath of powerful unseen forces determined to make their lives miserable.

You Boston fans are so funny – you weren’t “entitled” to Oden or Durant – they weren’t cruelly ripped from your grasp by the boogie-man or something.

Shall we go through the list of things that have happened to the Celtics and explain why this isn’t “bad luck”? This is just off the top of our head:

1) Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. He didn’t die in a car crash, or via a freak blood transfusion, or by getting mugged on the front porch of his home while drinking lemonade. He was a stupid kid who did too much blow, and your braintrust was too inept to figure out he wasn’t an angel. This is not bad luck.

2) Reggie Lewis died of an alleged cocaine overdose. (We’ll always believe this btw. He was a good guy, so the truth got covered, especially since it was way after the fact.)

3) You lost the Tim Duncan lottery in 1997 because the team with the worst record almost never gets the first pick. (2003 was a notable and welcome exception!) Much like Oden/Durant, Timmy was not your property who suddenly was taken away from you. Also, the 1997 NBA Draft Lottery was high on cocaine.

4) Antoine Walker. Twice.

5) Danny Ainge traded the pick that became Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy for Sebastian Telfair, who already had several gun charges against him, and has since gotten enough additional gun charges to be released by the team altogether. This is not bad luck – this is bad decision-making. Also, he’s almost surely done lots of cocaine.

6) Red Auerbach died. Okay, this was sad and everything, but Red Auerbach was 89 years old. Were you under the impression he was an immortal?

In short – stop freaking whining. You want to go through a list of curses and/or bad luck, try being from Cleveland. (And that would be all of our teams, not just one of them.) Jacobs Field had “Era of Champions” written across the outfield wall in the late 90s because of a string of Central Division Championships. Do you know how embarrassing that is?

Before that, the Indians were so bad for 40 straight years that they inspired an entire movie franchise. Our football team left altogether. LeBron was salvation, and now he says he’s cool with losing as long as everyone tries hard, which for most of the past 9 months, he hasn’t even done himself.

Just go enjoy your All-Universe football team, your 2004 World Series Championship, your 47-game lead over the Yankees, your 16 championship banners, and stop making up reasons to cry.

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Tim Duncan is in the Western Conference Finals

by The Cavalier on May 19, 2007 · 40 comments

As you likely know by now, the Western Finals is all set, as the Spurs knocked off the Suns in Game 6 last night. And you know what? That’s fine.

Sure, the Suns would be more entertaining in the next round, but the Spurs won – fair and square – no questions asked; no exceptions. We’re glad, too.

Why, says you? Here’s why – with ESPN people complaining and bloggers complaining, we’ve about had it with all the craziness. You have no right to complain.

And if I’m not going to watch much of the next two series, I’m sure the average NBA fan won’t either. So, good job, Mr Stern and Mr Jackson. You proved you were the big men in town. But you hurt your business in the process. But hey, at least you got to go home and tell your wives you bossed people around for a few days. That’s got to make you feel good.

Seriously, how can anyone justify this viewpoint? Do you people realize what would’ve happened if David Stern just arbitrarily decided the rules don’t count for this particular Suns team?

People would be screaming bloody murder – absolutely, positively, without fail. It’s insane – you can’t do that. You can’t just say, “Oh, well we like this Suns team a lot and those are like really good players who broke the rule, so we’re not going to follow it this time”.

For all the conspiracies about fixing the results of games the NBA deals with, you people were asking for that exact thing to happen. You were asking the NBA to cheat for the Phoenix Suns – in what context does that make any sense?

Look at it this way – reverse the situation, and make it Tim Duncan and Bruce Bowen who got “screwed”. We’re guessing 99% of NBA fans are laughing about it.

We get it – it would’ve been a better series if Amare and Boris had played – but the rules are the rules. This is like if Dwyane Wade fouled out, and they just stopped the game and said, “Hey, we’re gonna let Wade have 8 fouls, okay? Good, let’s play.”

You can’t change the rules just because you want different results. There are no “what ifs”, no (whatever the plural of asterix is), no nothing. Everything happened exactly how it was supposed to and it was 100% fair.*

*You can argue all day about whether the rule needs to be changed, but as you well know by now, we agree with Mark Cuban – the rule is good; the rule works; the rule does exactly what it’s supposed to.

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Laker fans want Kevin Garnett

by The Cavalier on May 7, 2007 · 23 comments

***NOTE: Tuesday is a travel day – we’ll try to get something new up before the CLE-NJN game. (Which CLE will take by 15.)***

(After reading this over, we’d like to pretend we didn’t write this or PS that. Therefore…The Cavalier is on a brief, one-post hiatus. The following was not written by him, but he would be really embarrassed, and moreso, ashamed, if he had.)

Our favorite segment of fandom (after Boston fans in general) to watch with curiosity are Laker fans.

Why? Because their devotion is matched only by their delusion.

Case in point – their continued pursuit of Kevin Garnett, which some fans have taken to a whole new level by starting GetGarnett DOT COM. They describe it as follows:

We as fans would welcome KG with open arms. The opportunity of playing under Phil Jackson and alongside Kobe Bryant may appeal to Garnett himself. Beyond that, the fans would appreciate a player with so much passion. After all, the look on Kobe Bryant’s face of frustration and sadness from the game 2 blowout up in Phoenix could only be paralleled with one other player in the entire league. Kevin Garnett. We as fans have to push for the Lakers and Jerry Buss to look into pairing up what could be the deadliest one-two combo in the entire league. Will KG ask out? Can the Lakers pull it off? Kobe said it best, “do something, and do it now.”

There reference there is to something we didn’t have an opportunity to cover, and that’s Kobe Bryant’s newfound aggravation with the LAL organization.

He says they’ve been at “Ground Zero” for three years, and he’s had enough. That’s both fair and true, and while we could easily shoot off some references to “making own bed” and “sleeping in said bed”, it’s much easier to simply poke a stick at the people who think there’s any chance LA can get Kevin Garnett.

(As perfect a pairing as that may be – KG could finally be the #2 guy he would function best as. We digress.)

Anyway, there are much more realistic objects of your desire, LAL fans – for example, you could at the very least make the target of your desires a slightly more realistic Jermaine O’Neal. There are others out there for the taking with the meager trade assets you have – perhaps a Grade A Jerome James?

(Yes, we realize Andrew Bynum is actually a decent trade asset, as is Lamar Odom. That totally ruins our concept here, however.)

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Ben Wallace is in Detroit

by The Cavalier on February 26, 2007 · 4 comments

In our new state of self-induced, natural NBA bliss, we’d totally overlooked the fact that Ben Wallace was making his controversial return to Detroit yesterday with the Bulls.

Of course, this was to be the first time he was back since leaving as a free agent, and everything went just as planned – he returrned.

In the build-up, Wallace made no secret of the fact that he hoped to be booed, and booed he was. It was somewhat surprising, but Ben loved getting barely any cheers just the same.

“That was just what I expected,” Wallace said. “Ain’t nothing like a good cheer or a good boo. Either way.”

Several times, Wallace waved at the crowd as if to incite it. “Yeah, I wanted them to get a little louder. … I played here for six years. I know how loud this place can be.”

We’re of the opinion the boos were actually cheers, by the way. See if you can follow us.

Since DET fans are like of the Bad Boys ilk, and since Ben said he wanted to be booed, the crowd paid him his respect and thanks by doing what he wanted – showing that Piston attitude and booing him.

Shoot – that was supposed to come out much funnier and far, far, far more confusing. Oh yeah – the Bulls lost on a Max Veeber tip-in late. You know, cause Max can’t play anymore.

(DetroitBadBoys and Need4Sheed have yet to weigh in, but be sure to go shoot over there sometime today to get their interpretations of events about and surrounding boo sounds.)

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Boston fans don’t like us

by The Cavalier on February 16, 2007 · 18 comments

We were, in the past few minutes, made aware that some residents of the famed Celticsbog have decided to take it upon themselves to go on the attack in the comments section of a recent post we made about the BOS.

Anger flows deep in New England – note:

I just left a few notes (under two different names…yes it’s trolling, but I just got so heated that I couldnt hold myself back) for that tool over at yaysports. I recomend that y’all head over there and read what he had to say about PP, and you’ll probably do the same.

“That tool”? We have a name, mister, and that name is not “The Cavalier”. We’re startled, shocked, and mildly offended. At the same time, the effort it must take for someone from Boston to think up two different handles makes for an impressive feat. We commend you.

That said, it’s sad that the effort was wasted, since a quick, remedial look at the post in question reveals that no insult to PP was ever intended. In fact, we compelled the man to get out of town and go somewhere that he can win – for his sake. He’s a fine player. Read:

If you wanna be on a contender, it’s probably not happening in Boston. Maybe you’re just greasing the wheels ala Jermaine O’Neal, but we’d recommend getting a little more proactive pronto. Hell, you could be back home in LA leading the Clipper resurgence by Tuesday if you’d be a little less lazy.

This would require be more lazy on the court itself, but the confusion over being non-lazy to be lazy can all be summed up in one word: stop playing hard and complain a lot.

Now, analyze that and explain to us how that doesn’t not say twice that there’s un-hardwork happening or not happening. There’s the lazy part, which we said and unsaid TWICE. If you’re not confused, then maybe the love should be placed elsewhere, like with the Celtics.

We hate having to explain our own work multiple times to you people, but the writing is or is not on the wall, depending on which wall you are or are not maybe looking at.

As for Jeff at Celticsblog – while we appreciate your attempt to curb the potential trolling, we feel compelled to remind you that your legions ruined All-Star 1-on-1 last year for everyone, and that Paul Pierce is fat, or at the very least, he’s “doughy”.

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