We think everyone is familiar with the infamous “Stephen A Smith eats Cheese Doodles during commercial breaks” hecklers from last year’s NBA Draft. It made the rounds on Deadspin and YouTube, and became quite the sensation. (Here’s a link if you’ve never seen it.)
Well, they were back this year, and it’s beyond classic. Realizing that simply heckling SAS again wouldn’t do, they go ahead and embody a whole new SAS, using no less than a dirty tube sock to do so. (Thanks, obviously, go to Deadspin for being the conduit through which things like this make it to the mainstream. As mainstream as the blogosphere is, anyway.)
Seriously, this is where journalism needs to go. Our favorite line: “Why hasn’t my praise changed your life, Brandon Wright?!?!”
That’s just genius.
UPDATE: It kinda dies during the second half on the second watch. It seems like the guys were getting tired. THAT SAID, it also looks like the broke the real Stephen A. Mark Jackson was trying to point out that they were screaming his name, and SAS looked kinda down and out about it. Not mad, but sad.
“It was just a precautionary measure, our doctors and trainers thought just so he wouldn’t cramp up on the plane,” Cavs Coach Mike [redacted] said. “Because he was pretty taxed physically after that contest. With him being as young as he is and strong as he is, mentally and physically, he should be ready to go tomorrow night.”
Um, yeah – we’d think so, too. Somehow we can’t see “LeBron James – tired” showing up on the injury report tonight.
It’s all come so quickly, really. Game 6, we mean.
We were hating the 3 or 4 days between games earlier in the Playoffs, but now that this one is imminent, we’re honestly a little freaked out, even with Chris Webber (of all people) pulling out the trademark Detroit Piston arrogant guarantee.
How will we handle it? First of all, we’re shirking massive responsibilities in order to watch this live. Fielding phone calls from family and friends is necessary to avoid heart attacks both on their end and ours.
Other concerns include panic attacks, high blood pressure seizures, broken table glass, blowing out our voice box, and instantly developing stress-induced diabetes.
Don’t misunderstand either – these are the things that will happen if the Cavaliers win.
There’s no way to prepare how to handle such a thing, because we can’t even conceive of what it’ll be like if the Cleveland Cavaliers, our Cleveland Cavaliers, go into the Finals. At home, no less.
We don’t care what infamous commenter Tony Parker says – we will cry, and we’ll be proud to cry.
Analysis and such is useless, and not what you come here for anyway. Everyone knows what they need to do.
So…go Cavs. We think they’re gonna do it.
NOTE: Brian Windhorst notes in the link above that LeBron only needs 26 more points to be the all-time leader in CLE playoff scoring. Coach Mike already has the most coaching victories. Say all you want about Boston or LA’s storied histories, but…um. Yeah. Look, Mark Price was awesome, okay?
ANOTHER NOTE: Anyone else think the Magic giving Billy Donovan a massive six year deal to coach is a disaster in the making? Don’t they read the history books re: college coaches in the NBA? Maybe ORL should’ve kept the pan as GM.
We’re about to go on Paul Teeple’s show on SportsTalkCleveland DOT COM, and we’re at a bit of a loss as to what to say. This is much the same situation we find ourself in with this post.
If you’re from Cleveland, you know what that meant and how it felt and what it was. Actually, if you’re from Cleveland, you probably don’t know what that meant or what it was. You know how it felt, but the feeling of overwhelm likely just meant no sleep.
(If you’re not from Cleveland, you just saw one man inject some actual intrigue into the Playoffs. Everyone outside the Detroit area wins here.)
Honestly, we feel silly trying to put any of this into words, and to be overdramatic, doing so disrespects what happened and what we all, yes…what we all witnessed.
So we wont. Read any of the 84,000 articles and blog posts we’re going through right now.
LeBron James ripped out the hearts of the Detroit Pistons last night and the Cleveland Cavaliers are one game from the NBA Finals.
We’re shopping for plane tix, because if they go, there’s no way we’re not there for it. No freaking way.
With the games lasterday giving us a jolt factor of roughly zero (DET-ORL was a particular bore), we need to skip back a day and cover the first of what promises to be many bold moves of the offseason.
Pacers head-guy Larry Bird and head coach Rick Carlisle had some kind of meeting, at the end of which they agreed that the latter should probably step down and go do something else.
Mr. Bird now faces the grim situation of having his job, that job being “guy who needs to rebuild the team, which will be difficult because of how they don’t really have many assets.”
“When the new coach comes in, will he be taking over a rebuilding program or a team that’s tinkering?” Bird was asked.
“That’s the thing we’ve got to explain to the guys we interview, that we don’t know the direction, although we have an idea,” he said. “But if there’s a major trade, we’d probably do it if it benefits us. So he (the new coach) has to understand going in that we will trade any of these players. It might not be what he likes, but he’s got to know that going in.”
That sounds like a fun situation – who wouldn’t want to be the guy suddenly stuck with a core of Mike Dunleavy Jr and that other white dude with all that hair?
Personally, we say trade Jermaine O’Neal to the Lakers – not so much for the good of the Pacers, but for the good of the NBA fanbase. Things are better when the Lakers/Kobe are more competitive.
Things really don’t sway either way when the Pacers are good, bad, or indifferent. Plus, Jamaal Tinsley loves guns, pot, and candy.
(Okay, how did we do? Please, let us know – we feel a bit rusty. There are at least 7 readers left after the Blog Suicide – it’s important we hear from each of you immediately.)
We say inspiring because it inspired tossing and turning…all night long. See, LeBron played like LeBron – probably for the first time since early November, if not last May.
Driving, cutting, slashing, 22 free throws – of which he made 18 and kissed his wrists zero times. (It’s a “three breaths” thing – we’re with it.)
To the tossing and turning. Are we back onboard? Do we remain cautious? Should we just hang back a bit? Are we all in?
We’re leaning toward “back onboard”, and we’d be even moreso if the titular event came to pass – Scottie Pippen wants to play again, and he might be coming to the Cavs.
“I’m thinking of trying to come back for the playoffs,” Pippen said. “Something like the last two months of the season, somewhere I can come back and play limited minutes to start, play point forward for someone and build toward the playoffs. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for the last three months.”
“Being out of the game, my body feels great,” Pippen said, adding that his body fat is at an all-time low 5 percent and he’s at his top playing weight of about 220 pounds.
“Taking this break, it feels amazing. I’m looking at somewhere I could play maybe 15 minutes. I’m not trying to be a big-money guy or anything, [just trying to] get with a team I can help in the playoffs.”
Talk about someone who could set LeBron in line permanently – who better than Scottie Pippen? Plus, this inspires literally 40,000,000 articles and column comparing LeBron and MJ.
(There’s no reason for these articles, but they’re always fun to read.)
Anyway, we’re on this train – go get him, Danny Ferry. What can it hurt, especially if he can run some point?
Oh, and before you say we’re jumping to conclusions, Cleveland is mentioned by Pippen himself as a possibility, along with the requisite Miami destination, desired spot for all bandwagoning vets. (What about the Lakers, though? Where’s Karl Malone pitching the Heat on his services?)
Again, the operative word here is fun. If one day you happen to stumble upon this, Michael – it was all about fun. Just like it was when this all actually happened. Documentary.
While the rest of the world mourns the Crocodile Hunter, we’d like to take a moment to talk about NBA career scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Born in 1947 in New York City, where the girls are pretty, he’s being sued by someone for unspecified damages.
That’s really all we know about this, and we’ve read the complete article. Please help us decipher what exactly is going on.
In an unusual twist, the employee (Broda’s daughter) is not the one suing. Instead, Diana Broda claims she worked for a law firm that represented Abdul-Jabbar. Broda says she contacted Jabbar and his company Ain Jeem and threatened to file suit when her daughter was fired. Broda says Kareem and Ain Jeem then went on the attack, contacting the law firm where she worked, which promptly fired her.
Time out to note we read that five times and still have no idea what the hell it’s trying to say. Where’d she work? This is gonna get tossed from court if a judge has to read any part of that paragraph. Let’s move on.
Broda says before getting the ax, she was “an able-bodied individual,” but since then she has been “rendered sick, sore, lame, disabled and disordered, both internally and externally.”
Well, we’ve never been in the state before, but you’re pregnant. You got banged out, lady (point!), and now you’re suffering the consequences joy of carrying a child.
Now, when you really think about this – when you really put the pieces together – Kareem is still one of the tallest people we’ve ever met in person. And we’ve met the guy who played Sledge Hammer! – he’s like a good 6-1.
Add in that we’re 6-3 ourself, and clearly there are references to at least 3 above-average height people in this post.
(If you happen to love legalese, TMZ paid $320 for this court filing in the hopes it’d have some kind of sex and drug thing happening. There’s not.)
‘Nique is finally getting inducted on the 8th here (along with Barkley, Dumars, and some people you don’t care about), and he’s taking the whole family along for the ceremony, as would be expected. Not so expected is the lack of airplanes involved.
This trip will be included in NBATV’s coverage of the Hall of Fame stuff, although we’re guessing they won’t give you the truth you see here. A shame, really.
